Leptobium carinatum ASSING , 2005

Assing, Volker, 2017, A revision of Leptobium CASEY. VIII. A new species from Iran, a new synonymy, and additional records (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae), Linzer biologische Beiträge 49 (1), pp. 275-284 : 278-279

Leptobium carinatum ASSING, 2005

Leptobium nabozhenkoi ANLAŞ, 2012: 228 ff.; nov.syn.

Material examined Turkey: 1♀, Antalya, Bey Dağları, Elmalı env., cedar research station, 1900 m, 18.-29.V.1987, leg. Korge ( MNB) ; 1♀, Antalya, S Elmalı, 1100 m, 17,.- 25.V.1987, leg. Korge ( MNB) .

Comment: The original description of L. carinatum is based on material from various localities in Muğla and Antalya provinces, southwestern Anatolia ( ASSING 2005), that of L. nabozhenkoi on a single male from Karaman, a province adjacent to Antalya ( ANLAŞ 2012). In coloration, habitus, and the shapes and chaetotaxy of the male sternites VII and VIII the holotype of L. nabozenkhoi is identical to L. carinatum . The same is true of the aedeagus, except that it is of slightly smaller size. ANLAŞ (2012) states that it is also of different shape in lateral view, but this conclusion is evidently based on an artefact: the aedeagus in figure 1f is shown in ventro-lateral and not in lateral view.

As has been shown and illustrated not only for several more common and widespread species, e.g., L. illyricum , L. syriacum , L. gracile , L. artum (KARSCH, 1881) , and L. densiventre (FAUVEL, 1875) , but also for species with more restricted distributions (e.g., L. assingi , L. arabicum ), Leptobium species may be subject to enormous, both clinal and non-clinal intraspecific variation not only of external characters such as size and the coloration, but also of the size and shape of the aedeagus ( ASSING 2005). Those indicated as distinguishing L. nabozhenkoi from L. carinatum by ANLAŞ (2012), however, are negligible by comparison. Consequently, there is little doubt that the holotype of L. nabozhenkoi is just a specimen at the low end of the size range of L. carinatum . Hence the synonymy proposed above.