Charopus concolor ( Fabricius, 1801 )

Franzini, Gabriele, 2022, Taxonomic notes on some species of Charopus Erichson, 1840 in the Mediterranean Region (Coleoptera: Cleroidea, Melyridae, Malachiinae), Fragmenta entomologica (Frag. Entomol., Roma) 54 (1), pp. 105-118 : 112-113

Charopus concolor ( Fabricius, 1801) ( Fig. 2d ).

Malachius concolor Fabricius, 1801: 310 . Type locality: Austria.

Malachius furcatipennis A.Villa & G.B. Villa, 1837: 17 . Type locality: hills of Brianza (Lombardia, Italy) [synonymy in Gaubil 1849: 118].

Charopus pallipes var. varipes Peyron 1877: 219 ; Abeille de Perrin, 1890a: 250.

Charopus pallipes var. variipes Abeille de Perrin, 1891: 411 [unjustified emendation].

Charopus pallipes Auct. [pars]

Types. Baudi di Selve reported Lake Trasimeno (Umbria, Italy) and Sardinia as type localities for this taxon. It has not been possible to find any specimen with either provenance in his collection at MRSN, but in collection of MSNG a few specimens from “ Toscana ” have been found, determined by Baudi di Selve himself (1873) as C. varipes , providing contemporary evidence of his standpoint .

Notes. Baudi di Selve characterized his C. varipes against C. pallipes mainly on the pubescence of elytra being spars- er towards apex. The first Author to demote C. varipes to a variety of C. pallipes was Peyron (1877). Abeille de Perrin treated it at first (1885b) as a valid species, pointing also to the different shape of pronotum and colour of elytral appendages. After a few years however (1890a), he stated that the differences from pallipes were too weak to keep the two taxa apart. Subsequently, the opinion of Abeille de Perrin has been generally accepted, the only exceptions known to the writer being the mentions in the Catalogues of Bertolini (1899 –1904) for some regions of Central Italy, and of Holdhaus (1912) for Mount Gargano.

The examination of specimens attributed to C. pallipes from the Italian Peninsula and Sardinia revealed that they actually are a mixture of two distinct taxa, one identical to the European C. pallipes , the other corresponding to Baudi di Selve’s C. varipes . Table 2 table summarises the main differences between the two above mentioned taxa.

The observed ranges of the two taxa overlap widely over Apennines until Abruzzo; all the specimens examined from the southernmost part of the Italian peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia belong to C. varipes instead. No specimens with intermediate characters have been found. No cases of syntopy have been observed, and on the few mountainous areas where both species occur C. varipes seems to prefer lower altitudes than C. pallipes . No specimens of either species have been studied from Corse or Tuscan Archipelago. C. varipes must be considered, based on current knowledge, an Italian endemic. Even though it has not been possible to retrieve original type specimens, there are no particular taxonomic problems, and in fact some of the ancient specimens already bear labels as “ varipes Baudi ”. Therefore in the writer’s opinion the use of the name varipes should not mandate the designation of a Neotype.

Some apterous male specimens have been found in the examined material.

Figures

Fig. 2 – Apex of left elytra ♂: a, Charopus rotundatus Erichson 1840; b, Charopus nitidus Küster, 1849; c, Charopus multicaudis Kiesenwetter, 1866; d, Charopus concolor (Fabricius, 1801).