Tenebrio caraboides Linnaeus, 1758

Ferrer, Julio & Holston, Kevin, 2009, Identities of Tenebrio Linnaeus types at Uppsala, and the resulting changes in old darkling beetle names (Insecta: Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), Zootaxa 2308 (1), pp. 29-42 : 31-32

1. Tenebrio caraboides Linnaeus, 1758 .

LECTOTYPE, det. Cychrus caraboides ( Linnaeus, 1758) . Linnaeus Coll., BMNH.

PARALECTOTYPE, female, labelled “ Sepidium caraboides ” det. Pachychila hispanica Solier, 1835 ( Fig. 3 ). Linnaeus Coll., UUMZ .

PARALECTOTYPE, female, labelled “ Sepidium caraboides ” det. gaditana Rosenhauer, 1856 ( Fig. 4 ).

Linnaeus Coll., UUMZ.

Original description. “25. T(enebrio) apterus, thorace ovali marginato, coleoptris carinatis. Fn. Suec. 825. Fn. Suec. 595. Tenebrio ater , coleoptris pone rotundatis, maxilis prominentibus. Habitat in Europa.”

Type status. In order to preserve the stability of the name, the Linnean specimen in BMNH is designated herein as the lectotype of Tenebrio caraboides L., 1758, and the two Linnean specimens at the UUZM as paralectotypes. De Geer (1774) was the first to direct the taxonomic concept of Tenebrio caraboides L., 1758, towards ground beetles, listing the name under his Carabus coadonatus De Geer, 1774 , and complementing the description with illustrations. Linnaeus (1790) re-described this species as “ Tenebrio rostratus ” in Fauna Suecia, and Tenebrio caraboides L., 1758, was listed under Tenebrionidae as “ Sepidium caraboides ” by Thunberg (1804). Paykull (1790) regarded rostratus L., caraboides L., and coadunatus De Geer , however, as synonyms of a single species of European ground beetle in his Monographia Caraborum Sveciae. Following a more modern protocol of type specimen study for guiding name use, Carl Lindroth (1957) noted in his monograph of the Carabidae that the UUZM syntypes of Tenebrio caraboides are undetermined species of darkling beetles: “fam. Tenebrionidae , gen sp., not fam. Carabidae Cychrus caraboides (L.) auct.” This note does not constitute a lectotype designation, but name use has remained stable due to the long-standing acceptance of caraboides (L.) as fixed on the BMNH type and applicable to the European ground beetle species ( Häckel 2003).

Remarks. Species identifications for the darkling beetle syntypes have provided additional insight concerning the type locality, noted by Linnaeus as “Europa.” The syntype determined as Pachychila hispanica Solier must have been collected in Cádiz Province, Spain. Pachychila hispanica Solier is rather well-known as a species endemic to the Iberian Peninsula ( Kraatz 1865; Winkler 1924; Reitter 1900; Gebien 1910, 1937; Schuster 1919, 1921; Peyerimhoff 1927; Fuente 1934; Español 1944; Ferrer et al. 2007). The two other species represented in the type series are more widespread throughout Europe but are also known from southern Spain ( Español 1944, Häckel 2003), and it is possible that the entire type series may have originated in Spain. The collector of the type series may have been Pehr Löfling, a student of Linnaeus, who visited Cádiz, in 1751 with the West Indies Company as a botanist who lived for about two years in Madrid, Spain (Nordenstam 2007). Specimens from Cádiz may have been collected by other Linnean students, such as Christopher Tärnström in 1748 and Pehr Osbeck in 1751 during expeditions with a final destination in China (Nordenstam 2007).

Figures

FIGURES 3–4. UUZM Linnean darkling beetle types of Tenebrio caraboides L. Fig. 3. PLT, det. Pachychila hispanica Solier. Fig. 4. PLT, det. Tentyria levis Solier.