Prothyma (Prothyma) quadripunctata ( Fabricius, 1801 )

Wiesner, Jürgen & Anichtchenko, Alexander, 2023, The Philippines species of the genus Prothyma Hope, 1838 (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae) Part 1: Subgenera Prothyma Hope, 1838, Genoprothyma Rivalier, 1964 and Parasymplecthyma subgen. nov., Zootaxa 5315 (1), pp. 1-36 : 3-5

Prothyma (Prothyma) quadripunctata ( Fabricius, 1801) ( Fig. 1 )

Cicindela quadripunctata Fabricius 1801: 239 .

Type locality. “ Java ” .

Cicindela quadriguttata Quensel 1806: 244 , synonymy by Fleutiaux 1892: 130.

Type locality. “Ind. orientali”.

Euryoda quadripunctata: Lacordaire 1842: 27 ; Fleutiaux 1892: 130, 131.

Cicindela quadrinotata: Sturm 1843: 1 (nomen nudum).

Prothyma quadripunctata: Horn 1910: 174 ; Horn 1926: 98; Nidek 1957:5.

Prothyma (Prothyma) quadripunctata: Rivalier 1964: 142 , f. 6, 143, 144, f. 8; Wiesner 1992: 57; Cabras, Cabigas and Wiesner 2016: 192; Wiesner 2020: 137.

Remarks. To date this species is known only from Java, Indonesia. However, Brouerius van Nidek (1957: 5) reports that he identified a specimen of this species from Santa Fe, Bukidnon, Mindanao (Department of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences). He did not doubt the identification of the species, nor the accuracy of the locality labels. The first author obtained a habitus photograph ( Fig. 1 ) of the specimen in question from David Kavanaugh, emeritus curator of the Department of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. In addition, Kavanaugh reported (e-Mail dated 21.09.2021):

“There are two labels: ‘Santa Fe, Bukidnon / Mindanao, P. I. / VI-1-32 2000 ft. alt. // F. C. Hadden / Collection’. I have checked through the Hadden correspondence in our files dating back to that time. The specimen was part of a large shipment of Philippines insects that Hadden, who was based in Hawaii and for a while on Midway Island and Samoa, sent to the Academy for deposit. There is no indication that he sent material from anywhere other than the Philippines, so I doubt that there was a mislabeling issue unless it was between different localities within the Philippines. The correspondence includes label data for specimens from only three islands in the Philippines: Luzon, Negros, and Mindanao.”

Consequently, the following conclusion is consistent with these details: The specimen is a Prothyma quadripunctata and was collected by F. C. Hadden in the Mindanao, Philippines. What circumstances led to the fact that this specimen was collected on Mindanao are unclear. If no further specimens of the species are found on Mindanao, the occurrence of the species in the Philippines must remain hypothetical.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Prothyma (Prothyma) quadripunctata (Fabricius, 1801), dorsal habitus of the female specimen collected by Frederic Clifford Hadden in Mindanao. Photo by David Kavanaugh. Scale = 5 mm.