Potamobius Stephens, 1829

Fery, Hans & Hájek, Jiří, 2016, Nomenclatural notes on some Palaearctic Gyrinidae (Coleoptera), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 56 (2), pp. 645-663 : 652

Potamobius Stephens, 1829 and Potamobius Hope, 1838

The generic name Potamobius was missing in the ‘ PalCat ’. GUSTAFSON & MILLER (2013) attributed the name to HOPE (1838) who mentioned it with authorship of W. E. Leach and with the type species Gyrinus modeeri Marsham, 1802 [= Orectochilus villosus villosus O. F. Müller, 1776 ]. However, Potamobius is for the first time mentioned as a gyrinid genus already in STEPHENS (1829b: 54), again attributed to ‘Leach MMS’ (manuscript name). The synonymy of Stephens’ name with Orectochilus was already stated by BALFOUR- BROWNE (1945: 111) who recognised also the homonymy with Potamobius Samouelle, 1819: 95 (Decapoda) . As both Potamobius Stephens as well as Potamobius Hope , are junior primary homonyms of Potamobius Samouelle , they are permanently invalid. We want to add that Hope’s Potamobius is introduced on p. 145 and not on p. 54 of HOPE (1838) as it is mistakenly cited in GUSTAFSON & MILLER (2013: 87).