Gyrinus lineatus Stephens, 1828

Fery, Hans & Hájek, Jiří, 2016, Nomenclatural notes on some Palaearctic Gyrinidae (Coleoptera), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 56 (2), pp. 645-663 : 650-651

Gyrinus lineatus Stephens, 1828 and Gyrinus lineatus Lacordaire, 1835

The name Gyrinus lineatus appeared for the first time in DEJEAN’ s (1821: 20) second catalogue, where it was attributed to J. C. Hoffmannsegg and as a synonym of ‘ Urinator. Germ[ar].’ The name is nomen nudum because it was not accompanied by a description and no previous description exists. It was also given as a nomen nudum in several other catalogues from the first half of the 19 th century, e.g. in STURM (1826: 145) with authorship ‘Il.’ [= Illiger] and as synonym of ‘urinator. Germ.’

However, the taxon was subsequently described as available by STEPHENS (1828: 97) and by Lacordaire in BOISDUVAL & LACORDAIRE (1835: 342; giving a hint on that name in DEJEAN 1833: 58) – both authors assigned the authorship to Hoffmannsegg as well. As there is no hint in Lacordaire’s description, that he was aware of the previous description of STEPHENS (1828), we consider both descriptions as original. Both names have appeared in the subsequent literature as junior subjective synonym of Gyrinus urinator Illiger, 1807 – the synonymy of Gyrinus lineatus Stephens was first established by BRULLÉ (1835: 236) and the synonymy of Gyrinus lineatus Lacordaire with G. urinator by AUBÉ (1838b: 704) – however never have both names appeared in the same work, and both names were missing in the ‘ PalCat ’.

We treat both names as junior subjective synonyms of G. urinator , and Gyrinus lineatus Lacordaire also as a junior primary homonym of Gyrinus lineatus Stephens.