Holopyga amoenula, Rosa & Pavesi, 2020, Rosa & Paves, 2020

Rosa, Paolo & Pavesi, Maurizio, 2020, The case of Holopyga gogorzae Trautmann, 1926 and revision of the H. miranda group (Hymenoptera, Chrysididae), Natural History Sciences 7 (2), pp. 39-56 : 52

HOLOPYGA AMOENULA SPECIES GROUP

Linsenmaier (1959) introduced the name Holopyga gloriosa group for the largest species group within this genus. The name Holopyga gloriosa ( Fabricius, 1793) , originally described as Chrysis gloriosa , has long been used in European and Asian literature for a presumed highly variable Holopyga species, which later proved a heterogeneous species complex. Kimsey (1988) found a specimen labelled “ Chrysis gloriosa ” in Fabricius’ collection in Copenhagen [originally in Kiel ( Zimsen 1964)], actually a Pseudomalus auratus ( Linnaeus, 1758) , and considered it as the holotype (in fact, selecting it as lectotype under Article 79b of the Code, see Pavesi & Strumia, 1997), despite of the striking differences with both original description, and Coquebert’s (1801) colour plate of a specimen identified as C. gloriosa by Fabricius himself in the Museum of Paris. Thus, Chrysis gloriosa was synonymised with Omalus auratus ( Linnaeus, 1758) , later transferred to the genus Pseudomalus ( Kimsey & Bohart, 1991) . Pavesi & Strumia (1997) found that both original Fabricius’ description, and Coquebert’s (1801) illustration of C. gloriosa , based on a specimen identified by Fabricius himself, cannot refer either to a Pseudomalus auratus , or to a Holopyga whatsoever; conversely, they obviously refer to an unidentified species, of the tribe Chrysidini , not of Elampini. Chrysis gloriosa Fabricius, 1793 , besides completely disagreeing with the prevailing usage of the name, was likely to prove a senior subjective synonym of a long-used name, thus the valid one, of some well-known species of Chrysidini . Stability of nomenclature would have been threatened. The authors therefore asked the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to place, under its Plenary Powers, the name gloriosa on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Specific Names in Zoology. The Commission ( ICZN, 1998) accordingly suppressed the name gloriosa , as published in the binomen Chrysis gloriosa Fabricius, 1793 , for the purposes of the Principle of Priority but not for those of the Principle of Homonymy.

Because of the suppression of the name gloriosa , the “ gloriosa group” of Linsenmaier (1959) is to be renamed. The oldest available name is H. lucida ( Lepeletier, 1806) . However, since preliminary, partly unpublished molecular data ( Pauli et al., 2019; Rosa et al., in prep.) suggest that H. lucida and related species may constitute a separate species group, or subgroup, not including H. amoenula Dahlbom, 1845 , and being the latter the type species of the genus, we propose to rename the Linsenmaier’s H. gloriosa group into H. amoenula group.