MELOLONTHINAE Leach, 1819

Smith, Andrew B. T., 2006, A Review Of The Family- Group Names For The Superfamily Scarabaeoidea (Coleoptera) With Corrections To Nomenclature And A Current Classification, The Coleopterists Bulletin (mo 5) 60, pp. 144-204 : 163

Subfamily MELOLONTHINAE Leach, 1819

Original spelling and citation: Melolonthidae Leach in Samouelle 1819: 189

Type genus: Melolontha Fabricius, 1775: 31

Remark: This family-group name was proposed in a publication by Samouelle (1819) but was attributed by Samouelle to Leach. Therefore Leach is the author of the name but ‘‘Leach in Samouelle’’ can also be used to facilitate information retrieval as suggested in Recommendation 51E of the ICZN. Leach ( Samouelle 1819) and MacLeay (1819) both used Melolonthidae in the same year. Samouelle was published first (June 1819) and MacLeay later (November 1819) so Leach in Samouelle has priority and should be credited with authorship of this name. The publication dates of these references were reported in the ‘‘Catalogue of the Library of the Linnean Society’’ in Transactions of the Linnean Society and in Evenhuis (1997) (both from independent sources). The type genus, Melolontha Fabricius, 1775 , is not a junior homonym of Melolontha Geoffroy, 1762 . The Geoffroy name was suppressed for the purposes of the Principle of Priority and the Principle of Homonymy ( ICZN 1994).