Euplusia yepezi Moure, 2000

Nemésio, André & Rasmussen, Claus, 2011, Nomenclatural issues in the orchid bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Euglossina) and an updated catalogue, Zootaxa 3006, pp. 1-42 : 18-19

6. Euplusia yepezi Moure, 2000 , nom. nud.

Euplusia yepezi Moure, 2000 : Errata et Addendum [inserted as a separate sheet in Revista Brasileira de Zoologia, 17 (2)].

Moure (1999) published a note on the taxonomy of Eufriesea (as Euplusia ), describing new species and taking nomenclatural acts. One of these acts was to consider Eulaema nigrita raymondi ( Schrottky, 1907) as a valid species of Eufriesea ( Moure 1999: 94–95 incorrectly spelled as “ raymoni ”). Following this, Moure (1999) provided a detailed description of the onomatophore [deposited at MPSP with label 102.942, lectotype of Centris nigrita (Lep.) var. raymondi Schrottky, 1907 ( Eulaema nigrita raymondi )—photographs of this specimen and labels made available by Nemésio 2009a: 39].

Nevertheless, Moure (2000) later corrected his interpretations concerning this species through a sheet inserted in the journal “Revista Brasileira de Zoologia”, volume 17, number 2 (no page number), titled “Errata et Addendum”, which was distributed on the 30th of June, 2000. In this “Errata et Addendum”, Moure (2000) mentioned that a serious mistake had been made—he did not mention if this mistake was his or the printers’—and reinterpreted Centris nigrita (Lep.) var. raymondi Schrottky, 1907 as Eulaema (Apeulaema) nigrita Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau, 1841. Moure (2000) stated that the rest of the text below Euplusia raymondi on pages 94–96 of the original paper ( Moure 1999) referred to the description of a new species, Euplusia yepezi . Moure (2000) also stated that the abstract should be corrected to include a paragraph stating that “one male specimen from Rancho Grande, Aragua, Venezuela, is described as Euplusia yepezi sp. n. …”.

This “Errata et Addendum” by Moure (2000), however, was overlooked by many subsequent authors, as Nemésio & Silveira (2007: 886) pointed out, and Eufriesea yepezi ( Moure, 2000) was listed neither by Ramírez et al. (2002) nor by Roubik & Hanson (2004) in their checklists. Moure et al. (2007), in turn, considered this species as a junior synonym of Eufriesea venezolana ( Schrottky, 1913) , a position followed by Nemésio (2009a: 232) in his checklist. A re-study of the Code, its criteria for nomina availability and the dates of publication of Moure’s nomenclatural acts, however, show that this interpretation is incorrect and that Euplusia yepezi should be considered a nomen nudum.

Article 21.6 of the Code, expressly states that if the date of publication specified in a work is a range of dates, the work is to be dated from the final day of the range ...”. (our bold). It obviously means that the date of publication of Euplusia yepezi is 2000, not 1999, because the publication was interrupted and continued at a later date— and in particular the nomen of the species itself and a tentative onatomophore were only published in 2000. This date, however, introduces a new problem, as the following is mandatory for names published after 1999:

“ Article 16.4. Species-group names: fixation of name-bearing types to be explicit. Every new specific and subspecific name published after 1999, except a new replacement name (a nomen novum), for which the name-bearing type of the nominal taxon it denotes is fixed automatically [Art. 72.7], must be accompanied in the original publication [Art. 16.4.1] by the explicit fixation of a holotype, or syntypes, for the nominal taxon…”.

Moure (2000) did not fix a holotype. When Moure (2000) stated that “one male specimen from Rancho Grande, Aragua, Venezuela, is described as Euplusia yepezi sp. n. …” the assumption that this specimen is the holotype is implicit, not explicit. This assumption becomes confusing when Moure (2000, last line of the “Errata et Addendum”) textually stated that (translated from Portuguese) “page 95 [in Moure 1999] and subsequent ones remain as they are”. Moure (1999: 95) explicitly stated (translated from Portuguese) “a specimen from Rancho Grande, 1100 m, Aragua, Venezuela, [collected] on 21-VIII-1974, F. Fernando Y. and C. J. Rosales leg. Received from Dr. Yepes when of [my] visit to Maracay in 1980 and compared to the type at the Museu de Zoologia of the Universidade de São Paulo”. Therefore Moure (1999, 2000) did not explicitly consider the specimen from Venezuela as the onomatophore nor explicitly designated this specimen as onomatophore as mandatory by the Code for species described after 1999.

By maintaining the original paper as it was, from page 95 onward, Moure (2000) contradicted Moure (1999) and did not explicitly designate an onomatophore, as the specimen implicitly regarded as the onomatophore in Moure (2000) was confusingly compared to a “ type ” at the MPSP. Given Moure’s (2000) changes, this MPSP type could not be interpreted as the type of Centris nigrita var. raymondi Schrottky, 1907 because Moure (2000) changed what was written at the end of page 94, removing the reference to the type specimen of C. nigrita var. raymondi . Thus, this “ type ” specimen compared to the specimen from Rancho Grande, Venezuela, is a non-explicit specimen under the new wording provided by Moure (2000).

Our conclusion is that Euplusia yepezi is a nomen nudum and the specimen deposited at the DZUP should not be considered a primary onomatophore.