Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 59( 1 ) March 2002 27 Case 3201 Scarabaeus piinctatiis Villers, 1789 (currently Pentodon hidens punctatus; Insecta, Coleoptera): proposed conservation of the speciJSc name Frank-Thorsten Krell Department of Entomology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K. (e-mail:
[email protected]) Abstract. The purpose of this application is to conserve the specific name of Scarabaeus punctatus Villers, 1 789 (scarabaeidae, dynastinae), which is a junior primary homonym of 5. punctatus Linnaeus, 1758 (scarabaeidae, rutelinae). Despite the homonymy both specific names have been used since publication and are currently in use; they have never been treated as congeneric and neither has been included in the original genus since 1798. The name Pentodon bidens punctatus (Villers) refers to the west and central Mediterranean subspecies of a common Palaearctic rhinoceros beetle; Pelidnota punctata (Linnaeus) refers to a common chafer occurring in the eastern part of the U.S.A. and southern Ontario. Keywords. Nomenclature; taxonomy; Coleoptera; scarabaeidae; dynastinae; rutelinae; Pentodon bidens punctatus; Pelidnota punctata; rhinoceros beetles; chafers; Mediterranean; eastern North America. 1. Linnaeus (1758, p. 350) described Scarabaeus punctatus from 'India'. In 1775 Fabricius (p. 33) transferred the species ('from America') to his new genus Melolontha. Later Latreille (1802, p. 152) placed it in his new genus Rutela, and finally MacLeay (1819, p. 158) established the genus Pelidnota for the species and this classification has been maintained. The specific name has been continuously treated as valid since its first publication. The identity of the species is unequivocal because Linnaeus (1764, p. 23) subsequently described it in detail and there is a specimen in the collection of the Zoological Museum, Uppsala which has been considered to be an original specimen (see Landin, 1956, p. 11); Wallin (1994, p. 43) incorrectly recorded that Landin (1956) had designated this specimen as the lectotype. The type locality ('India'), given as a locality for the species by Linnaeus in all his publications, was that indicated for other American species (see Landin, 1956). The name Pelidnota punctata refers to a well known chafer, called the spotted grape beetle, from the eastern U.S.A. and southern Ontario, Canada, included in the subfamily rutelinae (see Hardy, 1975 and Arnett, 2000). It has occasionally been reported to be a pest (Hayes, 1925, p. 90) 2. Villers (1789, p. 40, pi. 1, fig. 3) described Scarabaeus punctatus from 'Occitania circa Nemausum' (Nimes in southern France). In 1798 Fabricius (p. 21) transferred the species to Geotrupes Latreille, 1796. Hope (1837, p. 92) designated S. punctatus Villers as the type species of his new genus Pentodon (scarabaeidae, dynastinae), where it has remained. No type specimens are known. Endrodi (1969, p. 166)
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