Rhopaea verreauxii Blanchard, 1851

Allsopp, Peter G., 2020, Clarification of the status of the types of Australian Melolonthini (Coleoptera Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae) described before 1950, Zootaxa 4885 (4), pp. 451-486 : 483

Rhopaea verreauxii Blanchard, 1851

Rhopaea verreauxii Blanchard, 1851: 160 .

Rhopea verreauxi: Masters 1887: 65 (in error).

Rhopaea verreauxi: Britton 1978: 47 (in error).

Blanchard (1851) did not define the type series, seeing more than one specimen as he gave a range of body lengths that is followed by “(3)” (vide Articles 73.1.2, 72.1.1). Britton (1978) referred to a “ holotype ” male with the data “Nouv. Holl. Orient. [eastern Australia] (Verreaux)” in MNHN. Houston & Weir (1992) interpreted this as a lectotype designation (vide Article 74.5) and also listed a paralectotype in MNHN. Neither specimen could be found in a search of the MNHN collection in August 2020 (Olivier Montreuil, personal communication) and, as neither Britton (1978) nor Houston & Weir (1992) seemingly explicitly selected one particular specimen from the type series, the status of these two specimens remains unresolved.

Jules Verreaux made significant collections of animals and plants in Australia for MNHN, first, in and around Hobart (from December 1842 to April 1844) and later in and around Sydney (from April 1844 to November 1846) ( Anonymous 2020). The latter is consistent with the known distribution of R. verreauxii ( Britton 1978) .