Gyrinus pygolampis Modeer, 1780

Fery, Hans & Hájek, Jiří, 2016, Nomenclatural notes on some Palaearctic Gyrinidae (Coleoptera), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 56 (2), pp. 645-663 : 653

Gyrinus pygolampis Modeer, 1780

MODEER (1780: 158) adapted this name from ALDROVANDI (1602: 706). He introduced it deliberately to replace Gyrinus natator (Linnaeus, 1758) . His arguments were (1) that already ALDROVANDI (1602) used this name and (2) that all species in the genus are ‘natatores’ (swimmers). MODEER (1780) gave also a description of the species, but this description can be applied to many more than one Gyrinus species known today. At first the name was attributed to G. natator (we know of only four works), but OCHS (1967: 183) suspected that it might be attributed to G. substriatus Stephens, 1828 , and wrote ‘... what eventually even might cause a change of the name [ substriatus ] ...’ OCHS (1967) added, however, that it is by no means clear which species ALDROVANDI (1602) as well as MODEER (1780) had in their mind when describing the species. In the following years the name G. pygolampis was attributed by some authors to G. substriatus , however, always with hesitation (we know of only five works). ÁDÁM (1996: 61) was the only author who treated Modeer’s name as valid and G. substriatus as its junior subjective synonym. However, ÁDÁM (1996) gave no explanation, not a single argument for his proceeding – he even did not cite MODEER’ s (1780) work. Nobody followed ÁDÁM’ s (1996) view until today. We know almost 600 works (about 350 published during the last 50 years) in which G. substriatus is treated as a valid name. Of G. natator we know about 650 works in total, almost 200 of them published during the last 50 years. Thus, it would be easy to suppress the name Gyrinus pygolampis by applying Articles 23.9.1 and 23.9.2 of the ICZN (1999) – if ÁDÁM (1996) would not have had the totally unwise and unjustified idea to use Gyrinus pygolampis as valid instead of G. substriatus .

To solve the identity of G. pygolampis , we searched for Modeer’s collection. According to HORN et al. (1990: 266) Modeer’s collection came to the Swedish Museum of the Natural History (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet) in Stockholm. We sent an inquiry to the staff of this museum and got the answer that no Gyrinidae material can be safely identified as having been studied by Modeer. This is why we hereby designate the lectotype of Dytiscus natator Linnaeus, 1758 as neotype of Gyrinus pygolampis Modeer, 1780 . This specimen has been designated as lectotype of D. natator by ANGUS & CARR (1982: 224) who designated also the lectotype of Gyrinus substriatus Stephens, 1828 ( ANGUS & CARR 1982: 225). Both designations were done for stabilising the nomenclature as well as does our designation of the neotype of G. pygolampis . By this nomenclatural act G. pygolampis becomes a junior objective synonym of D. natator . The lectotype of D. natator is in the Linnean collection (London) and has an additional red label with the following printed text: ‘ Neotype, Gyrinus pygolampis Modeer, 1780 , des. Fery & Hájek 2016’.