Byrrhidium ovale Harold, 1869

Deschodt, Christian M., Davis, Adrian L. V. & Scholtz, Clarke H., 2016, A new monotypic genus, a species synonymy and nomenclatural corrections in the arid-adapted Canthonini (Scarabaeidae, Scarabaeinae) from the Succulent Karoo Biome of south-western Africa, Zootaxa 4147 (4), pp. 490-500 : 496

Byrrhidium ovale Harold, 1869

Figure 3

Elassocanthon brevipes Kolbe, 1908

Byrrhidium namaquense Scholtz and Howden, 1987 new synonym

Harold (1869) described the genus Byrrhidium with Byrrhidium ovale Harold, 1869 as the only constituent species. The very doubtful type locality was cited as “Port. Natal” by Harold (1869) although the label reads only “Natal”. Kolbe (1908) later described a new genus and species, Elassocanthon brevipes Kolbe 1908 (see figure 3B, E and H) from Brit. S.W. Africa, Kl. Namaland, Kamaggas [=Komaggas S29.80° E17.50°], vii. [19]04, L. Schultze S. This locality is consistent with the travels of L. Schultze during August 1904 from Steinkopf to Port Nolloth [S29.26° E16.87°], Henkries [S28.97° E18.09°] and Ka[o]maggas ( Schultze 1908). In 1938, Janssens noted that Elassocanthon brevipes Kolbe, 1908 is most likely a synonym of Byrrhidium ovale . However the two species were only formally synonymized by Scholtz and Howden (1987), who also added two new species to the genus, Byrrhidium convexum and Byrrhidium namaquense . However, following the reasoning in Table 1 , where we compared images of the three type specimens, we are of the opinion that Byrrhidium namaquense syn. n. is a junior synonym of Byrrhidium ovale . Consequently, we synonymize the two species.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Habitus, aedeagus and specimen labels of the holotype specimens of Byrrhidium ovale Harold (A, D and G) Elassocanthon brevipes Kolbe (B, E and H) (no scale) and Byrrhidium namaquense Scholtz and Howden (C, F and I).