Protaetia (Cetonischema)

Krell, Frank-Thorsten, Rey, Antonio, Micó, Estefanía, Dutto, Moreno & U. S. A., 2012, On nomenclature and identity of Scarabaeus aeruginosus Linnaeus, S. aeruginosus Drury and S. speciosissimus Scopoli (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea: Cetoniinae and Rutelinae), Revue suisse de Zoologie 119 (1), pp. 99-110 : 106

Cetonischema , Potosia or Protaetia ?

Reitter (1899) introduced the subgenus Cetonischema ''nom.nov.'' for Potosia aeruginosa Drury and P. speciosa Adams. Since he mentioned that Dr. Schoch had created the ''Genus Cetonia '' for speciosissima , but this was already given to the aurata -like species, it looks as if Reitter introduced a replacement name. However, in this paper Reitter used the abbreviation ''nom.nov.'' for all new genera he described. Moreover, Schoch had never created a genus Cetonia , but had used Cetonia F. for aurata -like species and Potosia for P. speciosissima ( Schoch 1897) . Cetonischema was described by Reitter (1899) as a new subgenus of Potosia without fixing a type species. The first author to fix a type species, '' Scarabaeus aeruginosus Drury (1770) '', was Medvedev (1964: 197) in the Fauna SSSR. However, as Branco (2007) brought to our attention, Arrow (1910: 136) had already fixed '' Cetonia speciosissima, Scop. '' (= Scarabaeus speciosissimus Scopoli, 1786 ) as type species for Potosia Mulsant & Rey, 1871 resulting in the confusing situation that two lately well distinguished subgenera or genera, Cetonischema Reitter, 1899 and Potosia Mulsant & Rey, 1871 , become synonyms. Löbl & Smetana (2007: 26) took the necessary steps and used Potosia as valid name for Cetonischema and transferred all former species of the subgenus Potosia to the subgenus Netocia Costa, 1852. Without the discovery of an older type species fixation for Potosia or a Case presented to the ICZN, we cannot use Cetonischema as valid genus-group name. Therefore, we suggest to follow Mikšić (1987) and Smetana (2006) by using the genus name Protaetia Burmeister for the former Cetonischema species. If mentioning a subgenus name is deemed necessary, Potosia Mulsant & Rey needs to be used. However, the transfer of the name Potosia to the taxon formerly known as Cetonischema might be quite confusing.

Synonymy

As it stands we cannot but confirm the following genus-group level synonymy: Potosia Mulsant & Rey, 1871

(type species by subsequent designation by Arrow (1910): Scarabaeus

speciosissimus Scopoli, 1786)

= Cetonischema Reitter, 1899 (type species by subsequent designation by

Medvedev (1964): Potosia (Cetonischema) aeruginosa Medvedev, 1964 ), syn.

Since this synonymy with its transfer of Potosia from one established to another well-known subgenus undoubtedly causes confusion, a Case to be submitted to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature might be considered. This Case would apply for setting aside Arrow's (1910) type species designation. A type species designation in accordance with the common use would need to be determined .

We propose the following synonymy at species level:

Protaetia speciosissima ( Scopoli, 1786)

= aeruginosa (Medvedev, 1964) , nec ( Linné, 1767), nec ( Drury, 1773)

Protaetia speciosissima ( Scopoli, 1786) is the valid name for Europe's largest flower chafer species.