Procas pyrrhodactylus, sensu Stephens

Thompson, Richard T., 2006, A revision of the weevil genus Procas Stephens (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea: Erirhinidae), Zootaxa 1234 (1), pp. 1-63 : 34

Procas pyrrhodactylus, sensu Stephens , not Marsham

Procas pyrrhodactylus (Marsham) : Stephens 1831: 91.

Marsham described Curculio pyrrhodactylus from a specimen in Kirby’s collection. Stephens regarded this species as a Procas but his concept of it was based on specimens from Marsham’s collection, not Kirby’s. These specimens have not been found and the only specimen now standing in Stephens’s collection as pyrrhodactylus is a Hypera rumicis (Linnaeus) . This specimen does not bear a ‘Marsham number’ and does not fit Stephens’s description of pyrrhodactylus . Interestingly, in John Curtis’s collection, a printed label ‘2 pyrrhodactylus Mar. ’ stands above that of rumicis . It may be significant that pyrrhodactylus is entirely omitted from Stephens’s Manual of 1839. It seems likely, therefore, that its identity will remain unknown.

Comments

The identity of Curculio pyrrhodactylus Marsham is not immediately obvious. The description does not fit any known European weevil. Marsham states that the type is in Kirby’s collection, so it may not have been before him when he prepared the description. He places it in a group with “... rostro pectori intra pedes sese applicante, sive pectus premente” (rostrum decurrent between the legs or resting on the chest). Of the 32 nominal species in the group, 22 are Ceutorhynchinae , the others mostly Cryptorhynchinae and Tychiinae . Species now in Procas and Hypera are placed together in another group. In Kirby’s collection there stands a severely abraded (therefore black) example of Sibinia potentillae bearing a label ‘4 pyrrhodactyla Kir.’ Its most striking feature is its bright winered tarsi which suggests that this specimen, or one like it, is what Marsham saw (the name means ‘red­finger’). This view is supported by the fact that Kirby (MS) lists pyrrhodactylus under Sibinia . I therefore support Caldara’s (1985) designation of the above­mentioned specimen as lectotype of C. pyrrhodactylus .