Euura mucronata (Hartig, 1837)

Liston, Andrew D. & Prous, Marko, 2014, Sawfly taxa (Hymenoptera, Symphyta) described by Edward Newman and Charles Healy, ZooKeys 398, pp. 83-98 : 84

Euura mucronata (Hartig, 1837) ( Tenthredinidae )

Euura gallae Newman, January 1837: 260; sex not stated; type locality: Scotland. syn. n.

Nematus (Cryptocampus) mucronatus Hartig, March 1837: 223; ♀♂; type locality: not stated.

Type material examined.

Euura gallae . Holotype ♀, figs 1-6: "[handwritten] Euura gallae Newm. [printed] Det. in Coll. Ent. Club, Inst.'d 1826. Pres’d 1927 by Club to Hope Coll.", "[red] Holotype (teste A. Liston, 2013) Euura gallae Newman, 1837", "Euura mucronata (Hartig, 1837) det. Liston 2013", "DEI-GISHym 19993". Condition: apical three flagellomeres of both antennae and right rear tarsus missing.

Discussion.

Newman’s very short original description of Euura gallae , based on a single specimen [holotype], is impossible to identify as belonging to one of the currently recognised species. The description reads: "Euura gallae. Nigra: antennis nigris, apice ferrugineis: pedibus pallidis. Black: mouth yellow; antennæ rust-coloured at the tip; the legs entirely pale. The insect is the size of Nematus pallipes : the only specimen I have observed was taken by Mr. Walker, in Scotland."

Five specimens bearing the name Euura gallae , all females, were found in the Hope Collections. Four of these belong to the Euura atra species group. They have nearly completely dark mouthparts, except for the labrum, and the femora are conspicuously black basally. They therefore do not agree with the description of the holotype. The fifth specimen (Figs 1-6) has more extensively pale mouthparts and antennae, the malar area is conspicuously pale, and the legs are almost completely pale. This specimen is identified as the holotype of Euura gallae .

Newman’s description of Euura gallae pre-dates Hartig’s of Nematus mucronatus by a couple of months. Article 23.9 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is here applied, to reverse the precedence of the species names, because the name Euura gallae (nomen oblitum) has not been used as valid after 1899, and Euura mucronata ( Nematus mucronatus : nomen protectum) has been used as a valid species name in [very many] more than 25 works published by more than 10 authors in the last 50 years. A list of these references is available from us on request.

The type species of Euura Newman, 1837 by subsequent designation of Rohwer (1911: 80) is Euura gallae Newman, 1837. Dalla Torre (1894: 276) listed Euura gallae as a valid species of Cryptocampus Hartig, 1837, but with a footnote "=? C. saliceti (Fall.)." At this time, Cryptocampus saliceti ( Fallén, 1808) was in use as the name of the species called Euura mucronata (Hartig, 1837) by most recent authors. Konow (1905b) placed Euura gallae as a synonym of Cryptocampus medullarius (Hartig, 1837). The latter is a junior subjective synonym of the species currently known as Euura amerinae (Linnaeus, 1758). Rohwer (1911: 94) and all subsequent authors followed Konow’s opinion, in that gallae was regarded as a synonym of Euura amerinae , or one of the subjective junior synonyms of that taxon. It is unlikely that any specialist, apart from Newman himself, has examined the holotype of Euura gallae . Clearly, the identity of Euura gallae has until now been widely misinterpreted. As a result of the new identification, the genus group name Gemmura E. L. Smith, 1968 (type species Nematus mucronatus Hartig, 1837), proposed as a subgenus of Euura , becomes a junior objective synonym of Euura Newman, sensu stricto. If in future it should be considered that recognition of subgenera within Euura is necessary, then a new name for the stem-galling groups would be needed. However, in our opinion there is at present neither sufficient phylogenetic support, nor a practical justification (because the genus includes too few species) for such an act. Distinction of species groups, if considered necessary, should be achieved by employing “informal” group names whose use is not regulated by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Such names might, for example, be the "mucronata group" for the bud-gallers and the "atra group" for the stem-gallers.