Anisotoma Panzer

Peck, Stewart B., Gnaspini, Pedro & Newton, Alfred F., 2020, Updated catalog and generic keys of the Leiodidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) of the Neotropical region (“ Latin America ”: Mexico, the West Indies, and Central and South America), Zootaxa 4741 (1), pp. 1-114 : 69-70

Genus Anisotoma Panzer

Anisotoma Panzer, 1797 : no. 8. Type species: Volvoxis glabra Kugelann, 1794: 538 (misidentification of Tritoma glabra Fabricius ) (5 species in original description, four as “new” [but not stated as such]— picea , glabra (Fabricius) [ Tritoma ], corrusca, corticalis, testacea); des. in Hatch, 1929b: 50 (as Volvoxis glabra Kugelann [sic], not stated as taxonomic change). Note: The type species of Anisotoma has usually been cited in recent literature (e.g., in Newton, 1998: 96; Perreau, 2015: 272) as Tritoma glabra Fabricius, 1787 . However, the actual type specimen (a syntype) of Tritoma glabra Fabricius belongs to the agyrtid genus Ecanus Stephens and is the type species of that genus, as confirmed to us by Jan Růžička (2019, personal comm., based on a photograph of the syntype), The type species of Anisotoma , in contrast, is the species referred to by Panzer (1797) as Anisotoma glabra Kugelann , and subsequently designated as type species of Anisotoma by Hatch (1929b: 50) as noted above. The confusion has arisen because Kugelann (1794: 538), who provided a description of this species as Volvoxis glabra , cited the Fabricius name in his synonymy. However, Panzer (1797: no. 8) explicitly indicated that he used the name glabra in the sense of Kugelann, not of Fabricius. According to Art. 69.2.4 of the Code ( ICZN, 1999) “If an author subsequently designates as type species a species originally included as an expressly stated misidentification or misapplication of a previously established nominal species, the species so designated is the nominal species denoted by the name of the taxonomic species actually involved (and not the nominal species cited).” We accept that this applies to the current situation, and cite Volvoxis glabra Kugelann as type species of Anisotoma Panzer following Hatch (1929), which maintains the current usage of Anisotoma (see also other notes below).

= Pentatoma Schneider, 1792: 339 (preoccupied, not Olivier [1789]). Type species: Sphaeridium humerale Fabricius ; not in Sherborn, 1902; des. in Hatch, 1929b: 50 (not stated as taxonomic change). Note: Several orig. spp., not clear which ones of many mentioned in discussion.

= Anisotoma ; Illiger, 1798: 69 (attributed to Knoch). Note: The reference to Knoch is apparently to some unpub- lished source. The name had already been used by Panzer (1797) but that work is cited by Illiger only for two included species, A. piceum Panzer and A. glabrum (Kugelann) [sic]. This use of Anisotoma by Illiger has been widely cited as the source of the name (e.g., by Thomson, 1859: 58, who designated Anisotoma picea (Illiger) [sic] as type species of “ Anisotoma Illiger ”), but it was almost certainly not intended as a new name. Here we consider Illiger’s Anisotoma as a subsequent use of Anisotoma Panzer , and disregard Thomson’s designation of Anisotoma piceum Panzer as type species (that species is now Leiodes picea (Panzer) , and accepting that designation would make Anisotoma a synonym of Leiodes ).

= Eucyrta Portevin, 1927a: 82 [as “p. 83” in Wheeler, 1979a] (preoccupied, not Felder [1874]); Wheeler, 1979a: 266 syn. Type species: Eucyrta didymata Portevin (4 species in original description, all as “new”— curta, didymata , frontalis, biplagata); des. in Hatch, 1929b: 57 (not stated as taxonomic change).

Note 1: Genus misidentified as Leiodes in Schmidt, 1841: 132 ; misidentification corrected by Reitter, 1884: 108; see discussion in Baranowski, 1993: 6).

Note 2: Revised in Wheeler (1979a), who proposed a system of species groups for this genus.

Key: to species groups and species in Wheeler 1979a: 271.

Distribution: 57 spp.—Holarctic, Oriental, northern Neotropical.

Biology: Feeders on plasmodia and fruiting bodies of myxomycetes slime molds ( Russell, 1979; Wheeler, 1979a, 1990; Newton, 1984).