Copris ensifer Germar in Wiedemann & Germar, 1821 : 147

Maldaner, Maria E., Cupello, Mario, Ferreira, Daniela C. & Vaz-De-Mello, Fernando Z., 2017, Type specimens and names assigned to Coprophanaeus (Megaphanaeus) d’Olsoufieff, 1924, the largest New World dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Phanaeini), Zootaxa 4272 (1), pp. 83-102 : 93

Copris ensifer Germar in Wiedemann & Germar, 1821: 147 .

Type specimen: Lectotype: here designated, male (‘ LECTOTYPE ♂ / Copris ensifer Germar, 1821 / des. Maldaner , Cupello & / Vaz-de-Mello , 2016 ’, ‘ 26692 ’, ‘ Brasilien / Sao Paulo’), ZMHB ( Figure 4).

Paralectotype: 1. Male (‘ PARALECTOTYPE ♂ / Copris ensifer Germar, 1821 / des. Maldaner, Cupello & / Vaz-de-Mello, 2016 ’, ‘ Brasil / v. Olfers ’, ‘ 26692 ’), ZMHB . 2. Female (‘ PARALECTOTYPE ♀ / Copris ensifer Germar, 1821 / des. Maldaner, Cupello & / Vaz-de-Mello, 2016 ’, ‘ ensifer / germ. / Brasil. V. Olf ’, ‘26692), ZMHB . 3. Female (‘ PARALECTOTYPE ♀ / Copris ensifer Germar, 1821 / des. Maldaner, Cupello & / Vaz-de-Mello, 2016 ’, ‘ Brasil / v. Olfers ’, ‘ 26692 ’), ZHMB . 4. Female (‘ PARALECTOTYPE ♀ / Copris ensifer Germar, 1821 / des. Maldaner, Cupello & / Vaz-de-Mello, 2016 ’, ‘ Brasil / v. Olfers ’, ‘ 26692 ’), ZHMB . 5. Female (‘PARALECTOTYPE ♀ / Copris ensifer Germar, 1821 / des. Maldaner, Cupello & / Vaz-de-Mello, 2016 ’), ZHMB.

Type locality: Brazil: São Paulo state.

Nomenclatural history: Copris ensifer was described in the paper titled Neue exotische Käfer co-authored by Wiedemann & Germar (1821). In a footnote to the first page of that work, the authors stated that names followed by the letters ‘ Gr. ’ were authored by Germar alone, while those followed by a ‘ Wd.’ had Wiedemann as their sole author. The specimens upon which they based their descriptions were deposited in author’s respective collections. Since ‘ Copris ensifer ’ is followed by the ‘ Gr.’ abbreviation, Germar is to be deemed as the sole author of this name.

As a literature reference to the new species, Germar (1821) cited Voet’s (1766) plate 23, figure 2 ( Figure 2 A, right), and, after a long discussion comparing C. ensifer and C. lancifer , he said ‘the illustration given by Voet shows the female of our beetle, certainly not that of C. lancifer […]’(‘ Voets angeführte Abbildung, stellt wahrscheinlich das Weibchen unsers Käfers, aus keinen Fall das von C. lancifer dar , nur find dann die Kanten der Deckschilde falsch ausgedrückt ’). This same figure was cited by Linné (1767) as a reference to Scarabaeus lancifer and, therefore, both Linnaeus’s and Germar’s descriptions were based in part on a same specimen (the one illustrated by Voet) and their type series are mixed. To settle this question, we needed to fix the name C. ensifer to a single specimen from its original type series.

According to Horn & Kahle (1935), most of Germar’s insects are deposited in the Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universität, Berlin . During a visit to that institution in June 2016, MC found six specimens that match Germar’s description of C. ensifer and show evidence of having been examined by Germar: as written in the ZMHB collection catalogue and in their labels, those specimens (originally seven, with register number 26692) were collected by the Prussian naturalist Ignaz Franz Werner Maria von Olfers (1793–1872) (‘ v. Olfers ’) in Brazil. One of the specimens bears also a label with a more precise information saying it was collected in ‘ Brasilien , São Paulo ’, which perfectly corresponds to the type locality ‘ St. Paulo in Brasilia ’ given by Germar (1821). Having arrived to Rio de Janeiro in 1816, von Olfers joined the German naturalist Friedrich Sellow (1789–1831) in an expedition through the provinces of Minas Gerais and São Paulo, in southeastern Brazil , from August 1818 to May 1819 ( Papavero 1971). After this period, von Olfers returned to Rio and sent his collection (mainly insects and geological samples) to the museums in Vienna and Berlin . Therefore, the six specimens found in the ZMHB were collected between 1818 and 1819 and probably arrived in Berlin in time to be examined by Germar for the publication of C. ensifer in 1821. As last evidence that those specimens are true syntypes, one of them bears a green square label typical of old specimens studied by Germar, including some of his type specimens (Joachim Willers, curator at the ZMHB, personal communication to MC). Taking all this information into account, here we consider those six specimens as part of C. ensifer type series and designate one of them, the largest male, as the lectotype ( Figure 4).

Figures

FIGURE 2. Scarabaeus lancifer figures mentioned by Linné (1767). (A) Voet’s (1766) figure 1 and 2 of plate XXIII. (B) Voet’s (1766) figure 38 of plate XXVII. (C) Marcgrave’s (1648) figure of ‘ Taurus’.