Pygopleurus, Motschulsky, 1860

Bollino, Maurizio, Uliana, Marco & Sabatinelli, Guido, 2019, The Pygopleurus Motschulsky (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea: Glaphyridae) of mainland Greece: taxonomy, faunistics and ecological notes, Zootaxa 4674 (2), pp. 151-202 : 155-156

Pygopleurus of Greece: brief historical background

The first report of Glaphyridae for mainland Greece was by Brullé (1832), who described six species based on specimens collected during his expedition to the Peloponnese. In this work are included some of the current-day Py- gopleurus that he referred to the genus Amphicoma . Subsequently, other authors have mentioned Pygopleurus and other Glaphyridae in faunistic lists for Greece ( Kiesenwetter 1858; Oertzen, 1886), or in taxonomic works ( Reitter 1890), but over seventy years passed before a new taxon was proposed for this country ( Reitter 1903). After 50 years, Mikšić (1959) and Petrovitz (1958, 1964, 1972) described a few species and subspecies and introduced names for “forms” and “aberrations”.

Finally, Baraud (1989) consolidated the taxonomy of the Greek Pygopleurus in his revision of the genus recognizing 7 species for the mainland. To date, no further taxonomic treatments nor studies were published.

The taxa described by Brullé: restriction of type localities and type specimens

All taxa described by Brullé (1832) were collected during his scientific expedition to Morea (currently, Peloponnese) in 1829, but most of them had no type locality indicated. By crosschecking information provided by Brullé (1832) and those found in the report by Bory De Saint-Vincent (1836), we determined that Brullé carried out two collecting trips in the spring 1829: 30 th March – 10 th April and 16 th April – 15 th May. He undertook additional collecting trips during the late spring and the summer of the same year, however after the period of activity of Pygopleurus that, in the area, ends by late May. During both spring trips Brullé collected in an area roughly comprised between Filiatra (presently Trifyllia), Kalamata, and Methoni (presently Pylos-Nestoras), within the current Messenia regional unit. Consequently, we restrict the type locality of Pygopleurus taxa described by Brullé to “Messenia”.

The material collected by Brullé, according to Horn & Kale (1937), should be housed at the MNHN. Unfortunately, most of the original specimens are untraceable or wrongly identified as such. Baraud (1989), who designated some neotypes, already acknowledged the loss of type specimens.

Infrasubspecific value of the forms described by Petrovitz

Petrovitz (1958), in his work on Pygopleurus , proposed many new names as f.[orm]. Following, we maintain that these names should be considered infrasubsecific according to article 45.6.4 of ICZN, and hence unavailable according to article 45.5.

In the introduction, Petrovitz clearly states “ Eine endgültige Klärung der noch offenen Probleme, vor allem bezüglich der wirklichen Wertigkeit der hier als Aberrationen bezeichneten Formen, wird vielleicht nicht in allen Fällen am Schreibtisch, sondern in der eingangs erwähnten Art biologischer Beobachtungen zu suchen sein [= A final elucidation of still open issues, primarily on the true value of the forms described here as aberrations, is perhaps not to be sought in all cases at desk, but by biological observations of the species listed in the introduction]. Hence, the rank of the f.[orm] sensu Petrovitz, is clearly introduced as infrasubspecific. In addition, in the same paper, Petrovitz explicitly used the term of subspecies (cited as “ssp.”) for some taxa, applying it at a rank higher than forms (“f.”): this is clear from the type setting of the paper itself and by the subordination of some “forms” (hence quadrinomial) to “ Amphicoma (Pygopleurus) vulpes ssp. bogoevskii ” ( Petrovitz 1958: 42). To further substantiate our conclusions, we can add that many “forms” shared a same descriptive color name which was applied in combination to several species at the same time (see, for example, f. violacea and f. cuprea, each used in combination with six species, or f. viridis, used in combination with eleven species) then with clear sense of individual form not species-specific. For example, treating Pygopleurus humeralis ( Petrovitz 1958: 49) Petrovitz stated “ Vorderkörper leuchtend grün (f. viridis), mitunter mit Goldschimmer ” [= Pronotum bright green (f. viridis), sometimes with golden shimmer] which clarify that Petrovitz considered his f.[orm] as individual, and suggests that he was prone to apply the name “ viridis ” to any green individual of Pygopleurus not matching the color of the type, regardless of species.

Taxonomic account

Our study led to the identification of ten species and one subspecies of Pygopleurus inhabiting mainland Greece.

The arrangement of species we follow does not conform to the informal groups I–IV introduced by Baraud (1989), as we consider them non-natural. Based on the morphological similarity of external morphology, paramera and everted endophallus, we formally introduce two species-groups that seem well supported with respect to the whole genus Pygopleurus . The other species here considered are not assigned to groups, and appear to loosely related, with the only exception of P. chrysonotus and P. scutellatus , very close to each other.

A checklist of species and species-groups, with corresponding old names, is presented in Table 1. A detailed taxonomic account follows, with species arranged as in the table.