Dichotrachelus sabaudus Fairmaire 1861

Dichotrachelus sabaudus Fairmaire, 1861

Fairmaire (1861) based D. sabaudus on specimens found by Marseul on Mt. Mirantin, near Albertville (France, Savoie) and described it as being extremely similar to D. rudeni. Marseul (1871) identified specimens from Mt. Cenis as D. sabaudus and placed the name in synonymy with D. stierlini Gredler, 1856. His opinion was supported by Stierlin (1878) and accepted by Heyden et al. (1906), Schenkling & Marshall (1929) and Winkler (1932). It should be noted that the populations of D. stierlini from the western Alps belong to the subspecies D. stierlini knechti Stierlin 1875: if this synonymy were confirmed, D. sabaudus would have priority over D. stierlini knechti; however, Hustache (1929) rejected Stierlin's synonymy and referred D. sabaudus to D. rudeni. His opinion was accepted by Osella (1968, 1971). As no holotype specimen was designated, it is necessary to fix the identity of D. sabaudus since five species of Dichotrachelus are potentially present in the surroundings of Albertville: D. rudeni, D. stierlini knechti, D. meregallii, D. augusti Solari, 1946 and D. maculosus. Specimens from Albertville in the Hoffmann collection belong to D. rudeni, and the four other species were recorded from relatively close localities. The name sabaudus has priority over the last four names.

Several specimens are preserved in the Fairmaire collection, identified as " sabaudus Fairm = Stierlini ":

a) 4 ex. labeled: 1. Rudeni; 2. Savoie; 3. Dichotrachelus Rudeni Stierlin / sabaudus Fairm / Alp. Gall. These specimens belong to D. stierlini knechti.

b) 2 ex. labeled: sabaudus Fairm. (without further indications, and not in Fairmaire's handwriting). These specimens belong to D. rudeni.

c) 6 ex. from Tyrol or Bayern, not referable to the type series of D. sabaudus.

Fairmaire did not unequivocally label the types of the species that he described, so these can be recognized only by indirect evidence (such as autograph identification labels in specimens of his collection, the same collecting locality as reported in the description, etc.). In this case, in the absence of any identifiable handwriting or more precise indication it is impossible to ascertain whether any of the specimens under a) and b) belongs to the type series, even though this is not impossible. However, no specimen clearly referable to the type series of D. sabaudus could be recognized, either in Fairmaire's (as discussed above) or in other historical collections of the MNHN. There is also no indication that any type of this species was ever distributed by Fairmaire to other collections presently conserved in different institutions, thus, according to art. 75.1 ICZN (1999), a neotype should be selected.

Fairmaire (1861) indicated that D. sabaudus was extremely similar to D. rudeni (" D. rudeni simillimus", Fairmaire, 1861: 586) and the original description corresponds much more to the characters shown by D. rudeni (and the specimens listed above under b) than to those of D. stierlini knechti. Furthermore, D. rudeni is surely present on the mountains near Albertville, the type locality of D. sabaudus, as demonstrated by the specimens there found and conserved in the Hoffmann collection. For these reasons we select as the neotype of D. sabaudus Fairmaire, 1861 one of the two specimens conserved in the Fairmaire collection, belonging to D. rudeni and listed above under b).

Neotype of Dichotrachelus sabaudus Fairmaire, 1861 (here designated): male specimen labeled: 1. sabaudus [hw]; 2. Dichotrachelus sabaudus / Fairmaire, 1861 / NEOTYPUS / 2011 Meregalli & Perrin des. [red, hw] 3. Museum Paris / collection Fairmaire / 1906 [pr]. Conserved at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris. Figs 5−8.

The synonymy Dichotrachelus rudeni Stierlin, 1853 [= Dichotrachelus sabaudus Fairmaire, 1861] is confirmed.