Cermatia violacea L. Koch, 1865

Thofern, Detlef, Dupérré, Nadine & Harms, Danilo, 2021, An annotated type catalogue of the centipedes (Myriapoda: Chilopoda) held in the Zoological Museum Hamburg, Zootaxa 4977 (1), pp. 1-103 : 86

153. Cermatia violacea L. Koch, 1865

Koch 1865: 890 (as Cermatia violacea )

Type loccality and specimens. Australia, New South Wales, Wollongong .

Dimensions. Not given.

Type material. Holotype. AUSTRALIA: New South Wales, Wollongong [ca. 34°25’S, 150°53’E].

Old type catalogue. Weidner (1960), p. 71, No. 1. Holotype.

Collection remarks. The specimen may have been collected by Eduard Dämel (1822–1900) on behalf of the Godeffroy estate.

Additional remarks. The holotype was already missing in 1887 ( Weidner 1960) and Haase (1878: 22) noted that the specimen was not present at the ZMH when he examined the collections. He placed C. violacea in the synonymy of Allothereua maculata (Newport, 1844) but the specimen he examined was from Queensland (and not Wollongong in New South Wales). He identified it as Scutigera (now Allothereua ) maculata and based the synonymy on this specimen but not the type. The fate of Koch’s type is unknown but Cermatia violacea is listed in the Godeffroy Sales Catalogue III ( Schmeltz 1866: 20) and it is possible that it was sold before the Godeffroy collections were purchased by the Hamburg senate.

Current systematic position. Junior synonym of Allothereua maculata (Newport, 1844) according to Haase (1878: 22).