Lepidiota caudata Blackburn, 1890

Allsopp, Peter G., 2020, Clarification of the status of the types of Australian Melolonthini (Coleoptera Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae) described before 1950, Zootaxa 4885 (4), pp. 451-486 : 461

Lepidiota caudata Blackburn, 1890

Lepidiota caudata Blackburn, 1890: 85 .

Lectotype (here designated) female: Type H. T. (circular red ringed, typeset) | Qu [Queensland] (handwritten in red) | Qu. 2662 (handwritten in red) | Blackburn coll. 1910-236 (typeset) | Lepidiota caudata Blackb. T (handwritten) | my lectotype label; in NHML.

Blackburn (1890) did not define the type series, supposedly seeing an unknown number of both genders (vide Articles 73.1.2, 72.1.1). He ( Blackburn 1912) subsequently realised that the syntype ‘male’ was a female and that it was an undescribed species that he then named Lepidiota deceptrix . Lea (1912) noted that the ‘type’ had been sent to NHML, and Britton (1978) referred to a “ holotype ” female from Queensland in NHML. Houston & Weir (1992) listed a “ holotype (probable)”, and Miller & Allsopp (2000) followed this interpretation. As Britton (1978), Houston & Weir (1992), and Miller & Allsopp (2000) provided no discussion and did not label any specimen in NHML, none of these mentions of a holotype constitutes a valid lectotype designation (vide Article 74.5). To stabilise nomenclature, I designate the female in NHML the lectotype. The second syntype in NHML becomes a paralectotype (as well as being the holotype of L. deceptrix ).