Phylloecus faunus Newman, 1838

Liston, Andrew D. & Prous, Marko, 2014, Sawfly taxa (Hymenoptera, Symphyta) described by Edward Newman and Charles Healy, ZooKeys 398, pp. 83-98 : 89

Phylloecus faunus Newman, 1838 spec. rev. ( Cephidae )

Phylloecus faunus Newman, 1838: 485-486; ♀♂; type locality: "in the vicinity of London". Note: faunus is a noun; the name of a Roman deity.

Cephus helleri Taschenberg, 1871: 305-306; ♀; type locality: Insula Lesina [Island of Hvar, Croatia]. syn. n.

Type material examined.

Phylloecus faunus . Lectotype (hereby designated) ♀, Figs 7-12. "[handwritten] Phylloecus faunus, Newm. [printed] Det. in Coll. Ent. Club, Inst.'d 1826. Pres’d 1927 by Club to Hope Coll."; "[handwritten] Faunus Newm."; "[red] Lectotype Phylloecus faunus Newman, 1838 des. A. Liston 2013"; "Hartigia faunus (Newman, 1838) det. A. Liston 2013". Condition: missing most of right antennal flagellum, most tarsi except right middle and rear; abdomen after tergum 5 glued to specimen.

Discussion.

[see also under Phylloecus , above]. Newman refers to a syntype series of three specimens of Phylloecus faunus : "Two specimens of this insect have been taken by Mr. Ingall, and one by Mr. Stephens". The single specimen examined agrees well with the brief description. Most taxonomic works and catalogues (e.g. Konow 1905a; Taeger et al. 2010) have until now placed Phylloecus faunus as a synonym of Janus cynosbati (Linnaeus, 1758), although it should have been apparent from several characters described or discussed by Newman (1838), that these are not conspecific. The mistaken synonymy was possibly first published by Kirby (1882).

Although the name faunus has not to the best of our knowledge been used as valid after 1899, neither has the name helleri been sufficiently used (in 21 publications by 27 authors including co-authors) as valid in the last fifty years to satisfy the conditions of Article 23.9 (reversal of precedence) of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN 1999). A list of these references is available from us on request. The lectotype of Phylloecus faunus agrees in all important points with the characterisation of Hartigia helleri by Jansen (1998). Quinlan (1970) identified a second female specimen in the Natural History Museum, London, which should be regarded as a paralectotype of Phylloecus faunus , as Hartigia albomaculatus [sic!], noted that it bore a label “faunas” [presumably in reality faunus] and mentioned that no reliable information is available on where it was caught. One might doubt the reliability of Newman’s statement that the types of Phylloecus faunus were collected around London, because under its synonyms Hartigia albomaculata and Hartigia helleri no evidence for the presence of this species in the British Isles has been published, and because neither of the two type specimens still in existence bears any explicit label data referring to the collection locality. However, an occurrence in the London area, at least historically, seems not unlikely. Chevin (1993) presented several records from northern France, under the name Hartigia albomaculata , and later ( Chevin and Chevin 2007) recorded Hartigia helleri from the Département de la Manche, not far from the Channel coast. It is concluded that Phylloecus faunus should be used as the valid name of the species referred to in recent years first as Hartigia albomaculata (or Hartigia albomaculatus , misspelling) and latterly as Hartigia helleri , and that after weighing up the evidence, the type locality of Phylloecus faunus can be accepted as being in the area of London.