Rhopaea magnicornis Blackburn, 1888

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 : 480-481

Rhopaea magnicornis Blackburn, 1888

Rhopaea magnicornis Blackburn, 1888a: 210 .

Rhodaea magnicornis: Lea 1912 : xxxvi (in error).

Lectotype (designated by Britton 1978: 42) male ( Figs. 66–68 ): F2384 (handwritten) | Richmond R (handwritten) N.S.W. (typeset) | I.519 Rhopaea magnicornis Blkb Queensland. (handwritten) TYPE (handwritten in red, at right angle) | SAMA Database No. 25-034464 | my lectotype label; in SAM.

The main part of Blackburn’s (1888a) description is based on a single specimen that must be a male given the size and structure of the antennal club. However, he then described a single female in SAM that must be considered a syntype. Lea (1912) catalogued the ‘type’ as in SAM, and Britton (1978) referred to a “ holotype ” male from South Australia in SAM. This was followed by Houston & Weir (1992) and Miller & Allsopp (2000), albeit with the addition of the register number I.519 by Houston & Weir. Britton’s (1978) incorrect reference to a holotype is a valid lectotype designation (Article 74.5) as he designated the single male as the holotype.

Blackburn (1888a) and succeeding authors gave the type locality as “ South Australia ”—this is not consistent with the labels on the specimen that gives locations well within the accepted range of the species ( Britton 1978; Miller & Allsopp 2000).

Figures

FIGURES 63–74. 63–65, Holotype male of Rhopaea decipiens Lea, 1919. 63, dorsal; 64, lateral; 65, labels. 66–68, Lectotype male of Rhopaea magnicornis Blackburn, 1888. 66, dorsal; 67, lateral; 68, labels. 69–71, Holotype male of Rhopaea nigricollis Lea, 1919. 69, dorsal; 70, lateral; 71, labels. 72–74, Lectotype male of Zietzia geologa Blackburn, 1894. 72, dorsal; 73, lateral; 74, labels. Photographs courtesy of the South Australian Museum Board.