Lesteva (s.str.) brevipennis Cameron, 1941

Shavrin, Alexey V., 2016, New taxonomic and faunistic data on the Himalayan Lesteva Latreille, 1797 (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Omaliinae), Zootaxa 4205 (2), pp. 143-150 : 144

Lesteva (s.str.) brevipennis Cameron, 1941

Lesteva brevipennis Cameron, 1941: 143

Lesteva brevipennis: Lohse, 1982: 201 , 203 Lesteva (s.str.) brevipennis: Shavrin, 2015a: 529 Lesteva pakistana Coiffait, 1984: 141 syn. n.

Type material examined: Type of Lesteva brevipennis Cameron, 1941 , ♀: INDIA: ‘ Type’ <round label with red margin, printed>, ‘ Kashmir | Gulmarg | vi-vii-31 | Dr.Cameron’ <rectangular label, printed>, ‘ L. | brevipennis | TYPE [red, underlined] Cam [eron]’ <rectangular label, handwritten in black>, ‘ M.Cameron | Bequest. | B.M.1955- 147.’ <rectangular label, printed>, ‘ Lesteva | brevipennis Cam . | Shavrin A.V. det. 2016’ <rectangular label, handwritten> (BMNH).

Paratypes of Lesteva brevipennis Cameron , 6 ♂, 2 ♀: same labels as the type except the type label: “Para- | type” <round label with yellow margin, printed> (BMNH).

Holotype of Lesteva pakistana Coiffait, 1984 , ♂ [The specimen was reglued on a new card, with the apical abdominal segment under the beetle; the old card was mounted under the new card; a plastic card with a preparation of an aedeagus and abdominal sternite VIII in Canadian balsam has been pinned under the old card]: PAKISTAN: ‘ Pakistan , 1977 | Wittmer , Brancucci’ <rectangular label, printed>, ‘ Murree-Abbotta [printed] 13.VI [handwritten] | bad 2200-2500 m’ <rectangular label, printed>, ‘TYPE’ <red rectangular label, printed>, ‘ Lesteva [handwritten] | pakistana [handwritten] | H. COIFFAIT det. 19[printed]83 [handwritten]’ <rectangular label>, ‘ Lesteva (s.str.) | brevipennis Cameron, 1941 | Shavrin A.V. det. 2015’ <rectangular label, printed> ( NHMB) .

Remarks. Lesteva brevipennis was described from Kashmir by Cameron (1941) and redescribed by Shavrin (2015a). Lohse (1982) studied the type material, which has also been restudied by me in BMNH (see above).

Lesteva pakistana was described by Coiffait (1984) based on two males from ‘ Pakistan, Murree-Abbottabad [...]’ and was compared with L. kargilensis (cited as ‘ M. kongilensis Cam. [sic!]’). Coiffait provided sketchy figures of the aedeagus in two projections ( Coiffait 1984: Figs. 33–34) based on the study of the dried preparation. During the study of the holotype I made a preparation of the aedeagus which proved to be identical (with a little smoother latero-apical porions of the median lobe) to aedeagi of specimens from Pakistan and Kashmir of L. (s.str.) brevipennis . Based on the proportions of the body, characters of punctation, microsculpture and coloration, L. pakistana is conspecific with L. (s.str.) brevipennis , which is the reason for the new synonym proposed here.

The species is distributed in North India (Kashmir) and Pakistan .