Orthomus berytensis (Reiche & Saulcy, 1855)

Guéorguiev, Borislav & Wrase, David W., 2016, On the identity of Orthomus hespericus Motschulsky, 1849 (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Pterostichini), Ecologica Montenegrina 5, pp. 28-34 : 31

Orthomus berytensis (Reiche & Saulcy, 1855)

Feronia (Argutor) rectangulus Fairmaire, 1859 , described from Batna, Algeria, probably is to fall into synonymy with another species of Orthomus , rather than with O. barbarus barbarus , though it was recently provisionally placed under the last taxon (see Guéorguiev et al. 2014: 40, Note 1). According to the present knowledge ( Bousquet 2003; Pupier & Coulon 2013), the latter species does not occur outside Europe, so it makes no sense to let the former in synonymy with O. barbarus .

The scanty description of F. rectangulus fits well on that of O. berytensis . A study of specimens of the latter species, all coming from central and eastern Algeria, showed that the taxon in question could be better provisionally inserted as possible synonym to it, rather than to other congeners from Algeria. Judging from the description, F. rectangulus seems distinct from the taxa of the “ O. rubicundus ” group (see Wrase & Jeanne 2005) by its total body size (9.5 mm). The largest species of this group from Algeria and Tunisia is O. aquila (Coquerel, 1859) , with a body size of 7.1-9.1 mm. In any way, the type locality of the taxon described by Fairmaire falls well into the wide distribution range of O. berytensis , which lives also in Algeria in its central and eastern parts. Because of that it seems reasonable to us to treat F. rectangulus as probable junior subjective synonym of O. berytensis .

Recently, Lorenz (2005: 265) noted that the name rectangulus proposed by Fairmaire (1859: li) is a junior secondary homonym of the name rectangulus proposed by Cuvier (1833: 194). This should be incorrect as the original binomen of the latter is Carabus rectangulus , now a junior subjective synonym of Abax parallelus parallelus (Duftschmid, 1812) (see Bousquet 2003: 470; Lorenz 2005: 292), while the original binomen of the name proposed by Fairmaire (1859) is Feronia rectangula . At present, both binominal names concern different valid genera – the former Abax Bonelli, 1810 , and the latter Orthomus , hence this case does not apply to Article 57.3 of the Code ( ICZN 1999).