Oedichirus rubronotatus PIC, 1903

Assing, Volker, 2019, Monograph of the Staphylinidae of Crete (Greece). Part I. Diversity and endemism (Insecta: Coleoptera), Beiträge Zur Entomologie = Contributions to Entomology 69 (2), pp. 197-238 : 230-231

Oedichirus rubronotatus PIC, 1903 , revalidated

Oedichirus terminatus var. rubronotatus PIC, 1903: 145 .

Oedichirus dimidiatus REITTER, 1906: 263 f.; preoccupied.

Oedichirus reitteri BERNHAUER, 1908: 33 ; syn. nov.

Comment: The description of O. rubronotatus , a name originally made available as a variety of O. terminatus ERICHSON, 1843 , is based on an unspecified number of syntypes from “ Crête ” ( PIC 1903). The name was treated as infrasubspecific by KOCH (1936) and subsequently regarded as a junior synonym of O. terminatus ( SCHÜLKE & SMETANA 2015) . Hence, O. terminatus is indicated for Crete in recent catalogues (e.g., SCHÜLKE & SMETANA 2015). According to HORN et al. (1990), the Pic collection is deposited in the natural history museum in Paris. Thus, owing to the current restrictive loan policy of this museum, the type material is inaccessible for scientific study.

The type material of O. terminatus , a species described from Angola, was recently revised by ASSING (2019b). This revision revealed that, as was to be expected, O. terminatus is not conspecific with other Oedichirus species examined from the southern West Palaearctic region, so that the previously established synonymy with O. rubronotatus is most likely incorrect.

The original description of O. dimidiatus is based on two syntypes from “Zentral-Asien: Baldschuan” and “Kleinasien (Adana)” ( REITTER 1906). BERNHAUER (1906) noted that the name was preoccupied by O. dimidiatus EPPELSHEIM, 1890 and replaced it with the nomen novum O. reitteri . This species has been recorded from Turkey, Cyprus, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan.

MEYBOHM (2009) discovered that the type locality “Crête” in PIC (1903) does not refer to the Greek island Crete, but to a locality in the environs of Fethiye in the province Muğla, Southwest Turkey. Only two Oedichirus species have been recorded from Turkey, the macropterous O. reitteri and the micropterous O. simoni EPPELSHEIM, 1889 . Of these, O. rubronotatus can only be conspecific with O. reitteri for several reasons. PIC (1903) states that the elytra are “largement marqués de roux à l’extrémité” (which is the case also in O. reitteri ) and since he attributes O. rubronotatus to O. terminatus , it can be inferred that it is winged. Oedichirus simoni , however, has completely blackish (or blackish-blue) elytra, is micropterous, and its distribution is confined to the Middle East (from central southern Turkey across Lebanon to Israel). Species of Oedichirus have never been recorded from Crete, despite extensive collecting activity.

These observations all lead to the conclusion that O. reitteri is in fact conspccific with, and consequently a junior synonym of, O. rubronotatus .