Canthon velutinus Harold, 1868

Rosa, Cecilia Lozano De La, Cupello, Mario & Vaz-De-Mello, Fernando Z., 2024, The dung beetles of Venezuela (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae): catalogue and updated distribution, European Journal of Taxonomy 959 (1), pp. 1-272 : 216-217

Canthon velutinus Harold, 1868

Canthon velutinus Harold, 1868a: 106 (first appears in an available publication as a rejected synonym of Canthon opacus Boheman, 1858 ; eventually adopted as valid for a taxon and, thus, made available under Harold’s authorship by Schmidt 1920 in accordance with Article 11.6.1 of the Code). Type locality: Argentina: Pampas grasslands. Name-bearing type: unknown to us, likely in the Harold collection material in the MNHN. Note: This name has a complicated history and, as it turns out, an unresolved status. When Harold was preparing his Canthon monograph, he considered that he had in front of him a new species from the Argentinian Pampas and coined for it the name Canthon velutinus . This name was, for a time, used both in correspondence with colleagues and in the manuscript of the monograph ( Harold 1868a). But when the manuscript was already in press, Harold finally received one of Boheman’s syntypes of C. opacus from the NHRS and concluded that it belonged to his C. velutinus , making this name unnecessary. Running up against time, he managed to place C. opacus as the valid name in the heading of the species’ section on page 106 and to move C. velutinus to the position of a rejected synonym on the same page, but he was not as successful in updating the identification key on page 15, where C. velutinus still appears as the valid name of the species. Despite this latter inconsistency, because it is clear from the context (especially from his explanation of the situation on page 107) that Harold did not adopt C. velutinus as valid in the publication ‒ and this was later reiterated in his following year’s worldwide Scarabaeidae catalogue ( Harold 1869d) ‒, his work alone did not make the name available for not meeting Article 11.5 of the Code ( ICZN 1999; see Cupello et al. [2022] for an analogous case). Schmidt (1920), however, argued that, contrary to Harold’s decision, Canthon opacus Boheman, 1858 could not be adopted for the species because it was a junior homonym of Canthon opacus Lucas , a name published supposedly in 1857, a year earlier than Boheman’s (currently, C. opacus Lucas is treated as an invalid subjective synonym of Canthon unicolor Blanchard, 1846 ; e.g., in Martínez 1959; Halffter & Martínez 1977). To replace Boheman’s supposed junior homonym, Schmidt adopted Harold’s rejected name C. velutinus , attributing its authorship to Harold himself. Through this act, Schmidt made Canthon velutinus available under Harold’s (1868a) authorship in accordance with Article 11.6.1. Following Article 72.4.3, the type material of C. velutinus is the series of specimens ascribed to Canthon opacus Boheman in Harold’s (1868a) monograph, including the examined Boheman’s syntype, making the type series of the two names partly overlapped; should this shared syntype be designated as the lectotype of each of the names, they will become objective synonyms. Schmidt’s nomenclatural interpretation ‒ i.e., Canthon velutinus Harold as the valid substitute name for C. opacus Boheman ‒ is in prevailing usage, having been adopted by all authors who mentioned the species in the literature ever since (e.g., Schmidt 1922; Balthasar 1939a, 1941, 1951; Blackwelder 1944; Roze 1955; Martínez 1959; Vulcano & Pereira 1964; Halffter & Martínez 1977; Vaz-de-Mello 2000; Peck et al. 2002; Ratcliffe et al. 2015). But what may eventually overturn Schmidt is that he is possibly mistaken about the priority of Lucas’s homonym over Boheman’s: the livraison of Lucas’s book containing page 97, livraison 27, where his C. opacus appeared, was earliest noticed as late as 7 March 1859, indicating that it was almost certainly not published in 1857 as Schmidt believed ( Bousquet 2016). If this was indeed the case and the livraison only appeared after the publication of Boheman’s work (which we only know happened in 1858, no more specific date available; Bousquet 2016), then Boheman’s C. opacus has priority in the homonymy and should regain validity, invalidating its substitute name velutinus . In the face of such uncertainties, we will preserve the status quo until someone revises the species and is better positioned to solve the conundrum.

Canthon opacus Boheman, 1858: 40 (original description). Type locality: Argentina: Buenos Aires. Name-bearing type: a single known syntype (NHRS), examined by FZVM. Note: Rejected by Schmidt (1920) for supposedly being a junior primary homonym of Canthon opacus Lucas, 1857 , itself also invalid for being a junior subjective synonym of Canthon unicolor Blanchard, 1846 . But see the note above.

Distribution

Supposedly Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, and Argentina ( Schoolmeesters 2023) .

Literature records

Roze 1955: 43 (cited for Venezuela).