Psalidognathus deyrollei Thomson, 1877

Santos-Silva, Antonio & Spooner, Amoret, 2021, On some species of Psalidognathus Gray, especially those of the group “ superbus ” (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Prioninae), Zootaxa 5023 (3), pp. 389-404 : 402-403

Psalidognathus deyrollei Thomson, 1877 , revalidated

Psalidognathus deyrollei Thomson, 1877b : xcvii; 1878: 4 (types); Lameere, 1883: 2 (cat.)

Psalidognathus modestus ; Lameere, 1910: 372 (syn.; male); 1913: 64 (cat.); 1919: 120.

Psalidognathus friendii friendii ; Quentin & Villiers, 1983: 444 (syn.; male and female).

Thomson (1877b) described P. deyrollei (see photographs on Pirkl 2021) as follows (translated): “Homeland: Colombia.—Male. Length 54 mm, width 18 mm.—Head metallic green; antennae and mandibles black; prothorax metallic green; scutellum darkened; elytra light brunneus, up to middle metallic greenish; legs shiny dark brunneus; depression of protibiae with distinctly light brunneus pubescence; tarsi dark brunneus.—Female. Entirely dark brunneus, shiny. / Head very granulose; frons longitudinally sulcate, inermis centrally, armed on each side laterally; mandibles rugose-punctate, inner margin with large tooth before middle; genal appendix conspicuous; antennae almost as long as body, scape rugose, antennomere III finely rugose, coarsely punctate, antennomeres IV–VI dorsally longitudinally distinctly sulcate, antennomere XI apendiculate. Prothorax transverse, trispinose laterally, granulose. Scutellum scantily granulose. Elytra granulose, humeri spinose, slightly longitudinally carinate, apex shortly spinose. Metaventrite slightly punctate. Abdomen nearly smooth, apex slightly punctate. Legs very slightly punctate; protibiae widened centrally, ventrally very excavate; metatarsi elongate.—Female. Larger, very wide. Frons as in male centrally; antennae slight surpassing middle of body, subspinose. Prothorax with posterolateral angles projected, acute. Abdomen smooth. Legs slight punctate. / Obs. A remarkable species, in the sense that it comes, so to speak, to serve as a transition between the Psalidognathus which have bright metallic colors, and those not metallic. Similar to P. limbatus Taschemb. [currently, P. modestus Fries, 1834 ], differing from which as follows: male, 1º Head and prothorax green metallic; 2º antennae more robust, shorter, with antennomeres IV–VI strongly sulcate dorsally; 3º genal appendix more protruding; 4º elytra with green metallic reflexions up to middle; female, 5º frons inermis centrally; 6º antennae subspinose; 7º prothorax with posterolateral angles projected, acute; 8º shape and color of the females as in P. mygaloides Thomson [evidently, the female that Thomson (1877a) transferred to P. sallei ; currently, P. friendii sallei, Thomson, 1859 ]. Dedicated to Mr. Henri Deyrolle.”

Lameere (1910) synonymized P. deyrollei with P. modestus , and suggested that the syntype female of the former probably belongs to P. sallei . This condition was maintained by Lameere (1913, 1919).

Later, Quentin & Villiers (1983) considered both, the male and female “ lectotypes ” of P. deyrollei in the synonymy of P. friendii . However, there are mistakes in the citations of this work. According to them on P. modestus (translated): “Lameere listed, for this very widespread species, the following synonyms: … deyrollei Thomson, 1877 … Of these, it is necessary to remove the male of deyrollei , which belongs to the group with spiny antennomeres…” However, when they wrote about P. friendii , they commented (translated): “On his publications Lameere (1910, 1913, 1919) attributed the following synonyms: deyrollei Thomson, 1877 , (only male)… We must include to this list deyrollei Thomson, 1877 (female). Actually, Lameere (1910) synonymized the male of P. deyrollei with P. modestus . But the main important problem is the designation of two lectotypes for P. deyrollei (translated): “ deyrollei . We designate as lectotype a male of 47 mm length, with the following labels: “Th., Type”, “Ex. Musaeo James Thomson”, “Muséum Paris, Coll. J. Thomson, 1952”, “Deyrollei Thoms. Type, Bull. S.E. 1877, 130 mâlesfemelles, 40 [actually, … 130 XCVII / ♂ ♀ / illegible, but not 40] Col. [evidently, Colombia]” [New synonymy, new combination].— Lectotype female of 58 mm length with the following labels: “Th., Type”, “Ex Musaeo James Thomson”, “ Colombie ”, “Muséum Paris, Coll. J. Thomson”.” Thus, no lectotype was designated for P. deyrollei .

It is difficult to understand why Lameere (1910) considered the syntype male of P. deyrollei as being equal to P. modestus , since the color of this latter species is never metallic green, even partially, and the genae is not distinctly and acutely projected. However, it is more difficult to understand why Quentin & Villiers (1983), who had the types of P. deyrollei before them, considered a species with so different antennae as being P. friendii . It is important to know that in 1910, Thomson’s collection belonged to René Oberthür, who never allowed Lameere to examine the types of his collection ( Lameere 1902: 59).

Psalidognathus deyrollei male differs from P. modestus not only by the color, but more notably by the cephalic carinae not divergent toward prothorax and not ending in a distinct tooth. However, the syntype male of P. deyrollei also cannot be confused with P. friendii because the basal antennomeres are not distinctly spined at apex (thus, contradicting Quentin & Villiers 1983) (spiny in P. friendii ), the antennomere III is not cylindrical, distinctly shorter, slightly longer than central length of the prothorax (distinctly longer than central of the prothorax in P. friendii ), and the antennomere IV is sulcate and not convex dorsally (not sulcate and uniformly convex dorsally in P. friendii ). Additionally, the distance between upper eye lobes is shorter, and the protibiae are notably widened centrally, which would not agree with the holotype of P. friendii (we do not consider these features as interspecific). Furthermore, also contradicting Quentin & Villiers (1983), the apex of the basal antennomeres in P. modestus , often are slightly spiny as in the syntype male of P. deyrollei . It is difficult to be sure about the syntype female of P. deyrollei . However, comparing this female with those of P. friendii , it is not possible to separate it from females of this species.

Thomson (1877b) indicated the type locality of P. deyrollei as being Colombia. However, only the syntype female has a label indicating the origin. We consider P. deyrollei as a distinct species, and formally revalidate it herein. The type locality of the species is provisionally kept as being Colombia. This is because the only information about the location is the information handwritten by Thomson on the label with the identification of the species.