Badister micans LeConte, 1844

Bousquet, Yves, 2012, Catalogue of Geadephaga (Coleoptera, Adephaga) of America, north of Mexico, ZooKeys 245, pp. 1-1722 : 635

Badister micans LeConte, 1844

Badister micans LeConte, 1844: 52. Type locality: «Georgia» (original citation). One syntype, a ♂ labeled "[orange disc] / micans 3 [handwritten]," in MCZ (collection LeConte).

Badister ocularis Casey, 1920: 210. Type locality: «Illinois» (original citation). Holotype [by monotypy] (♀) in USNM [# 47370]. Synonymy established with doubt by Bousquet and Larochelle (1993: 213), herein confirmed.

Distribution.

This species occurs from Nova Scotia (Lindroth 1954c: 305) to western Minnesota (Gandhi et al. 2005: 929, as Badister ocularis ), south to northwestern Tennessee (Lake County, UASM) and northern Georgia (Leng 1910: 73; Fattig 1949: 32). The records from “Florida” (Schaupp 1882b: 7), northeastern Kansas (Popenoe 1878: 78), and southern Texas (Wickham 1897: 105) need confirmation.

Records.

CAN: NB, NS, ON, PE, QC USA: CT, GA, IL, IN, MA, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI [FL, KS, TX]

Note.

Casey (1920: 206-207), followed by Ball (1959: 227) and Lindroth (1969a: 966), stated that the species described by LeConte in 1844 as Badister micans was "very different" from that described under the same name in 1847 (page 418). However the only difference I can see between the 1844 and 1847 descriptions is the size: 4½ lines (= 9 mm) in the 1844 description and.24 [inch] (= 6 mm) in the 1847 description. In 1844, Georgia is listed as the provenance of the specimen(s) and in 1847 he reported he had a specimen from Georgia and one from Long’s Peak. LeConte (1844: 52) added that Badister micans "differs very much in its general appearance from all the species of this genus" which also led Casey (1920: 206) to believe that the specimen was "probably not a Badister ." However, the other two species of Badister described by LeConte in 1844 were Badister terminalis (= Badister notatus Haldeman) and Badister testaceus (= Philodes alternans LeConte). Both species are indeed quite different from Badister ocularis . My interpretation is that LeConte made a simple mistake in the size of the species in his 1844 description. Blatchley (1928a: 47) also commented on this species.