Mordella aradasiana Patti, 1840

Ruzzier, Enrico & Di Giulio, Andrea, 2024, Taxonomic considerations of selected Western Palaearctic Mordellidae Latreille, 1802 (Coleoptera, Tenebrionoidea), ZooKeys 1207, pp. 151-165 : 151-165

Mordella aradasiana Patti, 1840 nomen dubium

Mordella aradasiana Patti, 1840: 292.

Comments.

The identity of M. aradasiana remains, and will remain, unsolved. The species was described in 1840 by Sicilian amateur naturalist Mariano Zuccarello Patti based on a single specimen he collected in the locality “ Praja ” (eastern coast of Sicily, between Catania and Agnone Bagni) ( Patti 1840). The description, given its year, is rather simple and mostly based on color, and the attribution to Mordellidae and the genus Mordella Linnaeus, 1758 (the only one uniformly recognized at the time) by the author, who had very little entomological expertise, was made solely because of the presence of an acuminate pygidium.

Based on the scant information provided (e. g., the size and color pattern), it is impossible to assign the species to any Italian and, more generally, circum-Mediterranean mordellid species; in addition, some of the characters provided in the description, such as the occipital part of the head partially covering the pronotum and the elytra not completely covering the wings underneath, would seem to suggest a taxon belonging to Macrosiagon Hentz, 1830 ( Ripiphoridae Gemminger, 1870 ), the female of Macrosiagon meridionalis (Costa, 1859) in particular. Unfortunately, some of the chromatic elements, such as the red spots on the elytra, a character not observed in any Italian Macrosiagon , do not allow us to attribute M. aradasiana to the latter taxon with certainty.

The quality of the descriptions, as well as the validity of the species described by Patti, have already been widely criticized and in many cases disavowed by several authors (e. g., Ragusa 1883, 1904, 1924; Luigioni 1929), confirming the uncertainty and impossibility of identifying a species often described as “ fictional ” ( Romano 2006).

It is also exceedingly important to note that the type of M. aradasiana , like the entire Patti collection inclusive of other taxa he described, was lost or destroyed ( Romano 2006).