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Issue: Vol. 4057 No. 4: 14 Dec. 2015
Type: Correspondence
Published: 2015-12-14
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4057.4.7
Page range: 582–582
Abstract views: 56
PDF downloaded: 37

New replacement name for the species Scarabaeus (Scarabaeolus) nitidus Davis & Deschodt, 2015 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae)—not an American pest

Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
South African National Collection of Insects, ARC-Plant Protection Research Institute, Pretoria, South Africa
Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
Coleoptera Below a new replacement name is proposed in accordance with Article 60 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999) taking cognisance of Article 57.4 that deems the subgeneric name Scarabaeolus irrelevant.

Abstract

In their review of the subgenus Scarabaeus (Scarabaeolus) Balthasar, 1965 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae), Deschodt et al. (2015) described seven new species from Africa. One of these was Scarabaeus (Scarabaeolus) nitidus Davis & Deschodt, known by only twelve specimens from Botswana. This new name is preoccupied by Scarabaeus nitidus Linnaeus, 1758, a fact that was overlooked. The latter species has been known as Cotinis nitida (Linnaeus) since Burmeister (1842) placed the species in his new genus Cotinis. It belongs to the subfamily Cetoniinae of Scarabaeidae, is called the Green June Beetle, and is a common pest species throughout most of the eastern United States (Goodrich 1966; Woodruff 2008).