Gymnetron comosum Rosenschoeld, 1838

Caldara, Roberto, Casalini, Roberto & Baviera, Cosimo, 2012, Taxonomic and nomenclatural notes on the Rhinusa tetra (Fabricius) species complex (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), Zootaxa 3329, pp. 31-40 : 32-33

Gymnetron comosum Rosenschoeld, 1838

Rosenschoeld (1838) described this species from specimens of Chevrolat's collection from Smyrne ( Turkey). The description is based on a brief comparison with Gymnetron eoum (presently Rhinusa eoa ). The few differences were: vestiture lighter in colour and denser, rostrum more finely punctate and bearing sparse scales, femora with more pronounced tooth. However, Rosenschoeld reasoned whether his new species might actually be the male of R. eoa , evidently described from females only (see above). Brisout de Barneville (1862) noted that Rosenschoeld's taxon, of which he knew only the male, differs from R. tetra by the shape of the rostrum, which is less tapered in lateral view and more flattened and not sulcate in dorsal view. Subsequently, Brisout de Barneville (1865) reported to have examined also a female G. c o m o s u m, from Kefalonia in Greece, which had a similar rostrum as female R. asellus (Gravenhorst, 1807) . Desbrochers des Loges (1893) ignored Brisout de Barneville (1865) and treated R. comosa as a variety of R. tetra with a large body and denser vestiture. Reitter (1907) placed R. comosa as a synonym under R. amicta , which he considered a good species with a different vestiture and rostrum than R. tetra . However, Hoffmann (1958) agreed with Desbrochers des Loges (1893) and considered R. amicta and R. comosa as varieties of R. tetra .

We examined two syntypes of Gymnetron comosum at NHRS with the following label data: “Smyrne / Coll. Chevr.” (female, lectotype here designated) and “Smyrne / 665 / Gymnetron comosus Sch. [sic] / Gymnetron comosus Chevr. , Anatolia / Coll. Chevr. / Typus ” (male, paralectotype). Due to the shapes of the rostrum and the aedeagus, this species is clearly different from R. tetra as correctly observed by Brisout de Barneville (1865).