Canthidium (Neocanthidium) centrale

Canthidium (Neocanthidium) centrale (Boucomont, 1928)

Canthidium centrale Boucomont, 1928b: 203 [here transferred to the subgenus Neocanthidium]. Type locality: Panama: Chiriquí; Surinam; and French Guiana: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni: Saint-Jean-du-Maroni (“ Panama: Chiriqui.— Guyane française: St-Jean-du-Maroni; St-Laurent-du-Maroni.— Guyane hollandaise: Surinam ”). Type material: Unknown number of syntypes (MNHN). Distribution: From Mexico to Ecuador (Kohlmann & Solís 2006a) [Although Boucomont (1928b) has clearly stated that his specimens came not only from Panama, but also from Surinam and French Guiana, subsequent authors overlooked that fact and restricted the distribution of this species to Mexico and Central America, sometimes including also Colombia and Ecuador. Blackwelder (1944), for instance, cited that C. centrale was present only in Panama, while Howden & Young (1981), in their revision of the Panamanian Scarabaeinae, said that species occurred in Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, and Ecuador. This latter distribution was followed by Martínez & Halffter (1986a), Solís & Kohlmann (2004), and Kohlmann & Solís (2006a), who did not discuss the putative occurrence of C. centrale in the Guiana Shield nor examined Boucomont’s syntypes. Future authors should reassess the C. centrale type series in order to check whether it is a mixed series and a lectotype should be designated fixing the name to a sole species taxon (for the sake of stability, preferably to the Central American species), or whether those Guiana Shield specimens belong to the same species taxon that the Panamanian syntypes as originally claimed by Boucomont (1928b)].

Neocanthidium martinezi Edmonds & Halffter, 1978: 319, fig. 62–65 [synonymized by Solís & Kohlmann 2004: 33. This name first appeared in the Edmonds & Halffter (1978) comparative revision of the dung beetle immature forms. There, they cited the only species of Neocanthidium with known immatures—both larva and pupa—was the then-still-unpublished “ N. martinezi Halffter ”. Following that statement, they presented a brief description of both instars and placed Neocanthidium in an identification key to the Scarabaeinae larvae. In doing so, however, they inadvertently gave availability to N. martinezi, which thereby has Edmonds & Halffter, 1978 — not Halffter alone—as its authors, as noted earlier by Kohlmann (2003) and Solís & Kohlmann (2004). It is important to stress here that there is nothing in the Code demanding that a name published in 1978 must have had its condition as a new name explicitly recognized in its original publication to be available. In fact, according to Article 16.1, it is only for names published after 1999 that the author’s intention to establish a new nominal taxa must be explicit so that given name can enter the zoological nomenclature]. Type locality: Unknown. Type material: Unknown number of syntypes, which are the larvae and pupae studied by Edmonds & Halffter’s (1978) for the descriptions and illustrations of those immature stages (unknown depository).