Altica ferruginis Blackburn, 1889

Reid, C. A. M. & Beatson, M., 2015, Disentangling a taxonomic nightmare: a revision of the Australian, Indomalayan and Pacific species of Altica Geoffroy, 1762 (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae), Zootaxa 3918 (4), pp. 503-551 : 505-507

Altica in the Australopapuan, Pacific and Indomalayan regions

The taxonomic history of Altica species in Australia is relatively short. Altica was much more broadly defined when its first Australian species was described, A. splendida Olivier, 1808 , and this seems to be misplaced in Altica (see below). For much of its history the name Altica has been spelt Haltica , following Illiger’s emendation (1807). Erichson (1842) described Haltica corrusca from Tasmania. Blackburn described three species of Haltica in 1889 and two species in 1896 and provided a key to seven of the eight species then understood ( Blackburn 1896). Weise (1923) placed H. australis ( Blackburn, 1889) in synonymy with H. coerulea Olivier, 1791 , which he claimed was also a synonym of H. cyanea, Weber, 1801 . This synonymy was partly rejected by Heikertinger & Csiki (1939), who recognised H. cyanea as a valid species, but a senior synonym of H. australis . The unjustified emendation Haltica was dismissed in favour of the original Altica in 1994 (Opinion 1754; ICZN 1994).

Two of the eight supposed Australian species can be eliminated from Altica . The specimen(s) on which A. splendida was based is/are missing from the Olivier collection in Paris (A. Mantilleri, pers. com.) and were not included in that part of the Olivier collection sold to Edinburgh (R. Lyszkowski, pers. com.), but the description and illustration ( Olivier 1808, [ Altica ] plate 3, figure 41) suggest that this was a species of Sutrea Baly, 1876 , several of which are similar sized, yellowish-red with blue or bluish-black elytra. Such species occur along the east coast of Australia, the origin of early material in European collections. There are no Australian species of Altica with both black and red or yellow colouration. This species becomes Sutrea splendida (comb. nov.), although we acknowledge that without type material it may be impossible to identify within that genus. Examination of the type material of Altica ferruginis ( Blackburn, 1889) shows it is certainly a species of Sutrea and it is hereby removed to that genus, as S. ferruginis ( Blackburn, 1889) , comb. nov. Significantly, Blackburn later had doubts about the generic placement of his species ( Blackburn 1896: 74). Since Sutrea lacks a type species, we hereby designate S. elegans Baly, 1876 , the first described species, distinguished by size and colouration.

The five remaining species names belong to Altica , as currently understood.

Blackburn (1896) revised the Altica species based on external characters, particularly colour, elytral sculpture and sculpture of the apical male ventrite. In our experience all of these characters are intraspecifically variable in the Australian Altica and the more reliable diagnostic features are genitalic, in both males and females, although these also vary. Based on our dissections of more than 150 Altica specimens from more than 40 localities throughout the country, we recognise four species in Australia. Two species have southern distributions and appear to be endemic to Australia (and misidentified elsewhere): A. corrusca and A. gravida ( Blackburn, 1896) . Our comparison of types shows that Altica corrusca , described from Tasmania, is a senior synonym of A. pagana ( Blackburn, 1896) , syn. nov., described from Victoria and Tasmania. The remaining two Australian species are principally tropical in distribution and therefore might reasonably be considered also to occur in New Guinea and/ or the Indonesian archipelago.

In regions neighbouring Australia, descriptions of Altica species go back to the eighteenth century ( Olivier 1791). These early samples appear to have originated from few collecting localities and of course were poorly described as species, therefore the species have been misinterpreted by later authors. For example, the Indian ( Maulik 1926; Scherer 1969), southeast Asian ( Kimoto 2001; Medvedev 2009) and Chinese ( Gressitt & Kimoto 1963) faunas share species with Indomalaya and the Pacific, but from examination of type material we have discovered that many names are misapplied. This could provide an argument for conserving traditional concepts using the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature (1999), but given the extent of misidentification and the inconsistency in use of the nomenclature by various authors, we consider a complete revision of the nomenclature the best option.

Our study of type material shows that all the common Altica species in Indo-malaya have been misidentified. The A. cyanea of many authors should correctly be named A. aenea ( Olivier, 1808) , previously considered a junior synonym of A. cyanea ; the name A. cyanea Weber, 1801 , should correctly be applied to another species in the region, hitherto referred to as A. caerulea (or A. coerulea ); the name A. caerulea ( Olivier, 1791) should be applied to the species generally known as A. brevicosta ( Weise, 1922a) , as correctly noted by Kimoto (2001) and Mohamedsaid (2004); the species A. birmanensis is valid, but has been misidentified or conflated with A. cyanea . All these names have many synonyms, as detailed below. Altica aenea , A. birmanensis , A. brevicosta and A. cyanea have also been catalogued as a single species ( Gruev & Döberl 1997).

In Australia, Altica aenea is a senior synonym of A. ignea ( Blackburn, 1889) , syn. nov., described from the Northern Territory, and A. australis ( Blackburn, 1889) , as indicated by Weise (1923) and Heikertinger and Csiki (1939), although these authors wrongly used the name A. cyanea . Altica caerulea is a widespread species in northern Australia which was included by Blackburn (1896) under the name Haltica gravida .

In the west and central Pacific region five species have been recorded, but our dissections of extensive material show that only a single species is involved. Altica aenea is the correct name for this single species, previously misidentified as A. corrusca or A. gravida ( Allard 1891, 1904; Veitch & Greenwood 1921; Bryant & Gressitt 1957; Samuelson 1973). The species A. bicolora ( Jacoby, 1904) , described from New Guinea as a possible colour variety of A. pagana , is also a synonym of A. aenea (syn. nov.). Our examination of types of Altica jussiaeae Gressitt, 1955 , described from Palau, shows that this too is a junior synonym of A. aenea (syn. nov.). The fifth species recorded in the region is based on a single nineteenth century specimen of the Palaearctic ( Döberl 2010a) species A. oleracea (L., 1758), labelled from New Caledonia ( Samuelson 1973). We have not examined this specimen, but given that (i) A. aenea is abundant on the island ( Samuelson 1973), (ii) the identifier is a competent taxonomist, and (iii) A. oleracea has only been collected once, this record should be considered a mislabelled specimen.

One further Altica species has been described in the Indomalayan Archipelago: A. albicornis Medvedev, 2004 , from the mountains of Sulawesi. This species was poorly described, but notably the third antennomere is described as longer than any one of 4–10, and the penis lacking ridges but having a single preapical hollow. Fortunately a photograph of the holotype is available ( Bos 2014), which shows that the pronotal basal depression is laterally abbreviated by short longitudinal grooves, there is a row of large punctures at the sides of the pronotum and the postantennal calli are adjacent and triangular. All of these features are typical of the genus Phygasia Dejean, 1836 ( Scherer 1969; Kimoto 2000; Medvedev 2009), to which this species is therefore transferred, as P. albicornis ( Medvedev, 2004) comb. nov.

In summary, only six species exist from Sumatra to Fiji, including Australia. Based on external and internal morphology these can be divided into two informal groups: A. aenea species-group, including A. aenea , A. birmanensis , A. corrusca , and A. cyanea ;and A. caerulea species-group, including A. caerulea and A. gravida . The history of the regional literature concerning Altica is summarised in Table 1. Adults of all the species are redescribed below.

Reference published name probable correct name(s) Adam & Pescott 1932 pagana corrusca

Alam & Karim 1980 foveicollis aenea?

Bryant & Gressitt 1957 corusca & A. gravida aenea

Döberl 2010a cyanea aenea

caerulea birmanensis , A. caerulea & A. cyanea

Elliott et al 2002 pagana corrusca

French 1913 pagana corrusca

Gressitt & Kimoto 1963 brevicosta caerulea

coerulea aenea , A. birmanensis & A. cyanea

cyanea aenea ,. A. birmanensis & A. cyanea Gruev & Döberl 1997 cyanea aenea, A. birmanensis , A. caerulea & A.

cyanea

Gruev & Doberl 2005 coerulea birmanensis , A. caerulea & A. cyanea Hawkeswood 1988 corusca aenea &/or A. caerulea

Hawkeswood & Furth 1994 corusca aenea &/or A. caerulea

Jyala 2002 himensis himalayensis ?

Kimoto 2000 birmanensis birmanensis & A. aenea

......continued on the next page cyanea aenea

Singh et al. 1986 caerulea himalayensis

Takizawa 1978 cyanea aenea

Veitch & Greenwood 1921 gravida aenea

Vestjens 1979 ignea gravida

Xiao-Shui 1990 cyanea aenea

Zhang et al 2006 brevicosta caerulea

coerulea aenea ?

cyanea aenea