Eleodes conjunctus Walker

Thomas, Donald B., Smith, Aaron D., Triplehorn, Charles A. & Aalbu, Rolf A., 2014, Walker’s Eleodes (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), Zootaxa 3835 (4), pp. 583-592 : 584-585

Eleodes conjunctus Walker ( Fig. 2)

Eleodes conjuncta Walker, 1866 , vol. 2, p. 329.

Original Description: “Black, rather dull, like H. convexicollis in structure. Head and thorax very minutely punctured. Thorax with a shallow discal on each side hindward; sides less convex than those of H. convexicollis . Scutellum larger. Elytra narrower; their sides more linear. Length of the body, 13 lines.”

Type Material. HOLOTYPE by monotypy.

Labels: (a) [circular, margined in red, printed] “ Type H.T.” (b) [circular, margined in red, printed] “ Type H.T.” (c) [hand-script] “ conjuncta . ” (d) [circular, hand-script] “64 18.”

Eleodes conjunctus Walker was placed in synonymy under Eleodes obscurus (Say 1824) on page 248 of Gebien’s (1910) catalog and we confirm that in fact the specimen is a male of that species. In his description Walker compared conjunctus to convexicollis but used the prefix “H.” instead of “E.” for Eleodes . It may be that this error stems from an early draft wherein Walker had placed his species in Helops F. the next genus treated in his article. It is also likely that the word “impression,” to follow the adjective “discal,” was left out of the published version of the description.

Another relevant and available name is Eleodes sulcipennis ( Mannerheim 1843) described from specimens collected in the Pacific Northwest by the Russian expeditions to that area. Horn (1870) reduced its status to a “race” of E. obscurus and it is now considered to be a subspecies following Wickham (1890) and Blaisdell (1909). Walker’s specimens of E. convexicollis and E. conjunctus correspond to that taxon and are therefore junior synonyms of Eleodes obscurus sulcipennis Mannerheim , and they were correctly listed in this combination by Leng (1920).