Scatonomus Erichson, 1835

Valois, Marcely C., Vaz-de-Mello, Fernando Z. & Silva, Fernando A. B., 2020, A taxonomic revision of the Neotropical genus Scatonomus Erichson, 1835 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae), Journal of Natural History 54 (17 - 18), pp. 1081-1114 : 1084

Scatonomus Erichson, 1835

Type species

In describing Scatonomus, Erichson (1835) included four species in the genus – namely, S. viridis , S. fasciculatus , S. barbatus and S. chalybaeus – but he did not fix a type species. Despite S. viridis being the first species described and the only one illustrated by Erichson, he did not refer to it as the type species of the genus. However, in the course of our literature review, we found a taxonomic remark in Westwood (1847) where the author referred to S. viridis as ‘the typical species’ of Scatonomus . According to article 69 of ICZN (1999), Westwood’s publication must be accepted as a valid designation of the type species of the genus.