Aquarius chilensis ( Berg, 1881 )

Damgaard, Jakob & Moreira, Felipe Ferraz Figueiredo, 2021, Water bugs (Hemipera: Heteroptera: Nepomorpha & Gerromorpha) of Chile phylogenetic and biogeographic considerations, and a catalog of the fauna, Zootaxa 4958 (1), pp. 45-71 : 53

Aquarius chilensis ( Berg, 1881)

Limnotrechus chilensis Berg, 1881: 263 .—HT: #, Chile, “Diguillin” [Diguillín]; lost.

Gerris chilensis ( Berg, 1881) ; Lethierry & Severin (1896: 60).

Hydrometra chilensis ( Berg, 1881) ; Reed (1901: 68).

Gerris (Aquarius) chilensis ( Berg, 1881) ; Matsuda (1960: 175).

Aquarius chilensis ( Berg, 1881) ; Andersen (1990: 71).

Distribution. Chile (Bernardo O’Higgins, Biobío, Coquimbo, Maule, Santiago, Valparaíso) ( Berg 1881, Porter 1923, Drake & Harris 1933, Porter 1938, Kuitert 1942, Andersen 1990); Peru ( Andersen 1990).

Notes. Berg (1881) mentioned that the type of Limnotrechus chilensis , from Diguillín, Chile, was deposited in the Gabinete de Historia Natural de Buenos Aires, which was the first sector of the Universidad de Buenos Aires to harbor natural collections, such as plants, animals, and rocks. Later, the Argentinian government created the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Buenos Aires (now the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”, MACN), which was directed by Berg from 1892 to 1902 ( Gallardo 1902). Andersen (1990) and Damgaard et al. (2014) assumed that the type of L. chilensis was deposited in the MACN, but it is not mentioned in Bachmann’s (1999) or Bachmann’s (2012) lists of Heteroptera types deposited in this museum. It is also not in the Museo de La Plata (MLP) ( Coscarón et al. 2015), where many of Berg’s types are now deposited, or in the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet (NHRS) ( Gustafsson 2006), where some of his material was sent to. We contacted the staffs of the MACN, the MLP, the Universidad de Buenos Aires, the Universidad de Magallanes, and the NHRS, but they could not locate the type of L. chilensis in any of these institutions nor in any other Argentinian or Chilean collection. Therefore, we consider that this specimen was lost. Villagra et al. (2001) provided important observations about the sexual dimorphism, behavior and ecology of this species.