Platylabus rubricapensis Provancher 1882

Platylabus rubricapensis Provancher, 1882

(Figures 30, 31)

Platylabus Rubri Capensis Provancher, 1882: 329 (descr.).

Platylabus Rubricapensis Provancher 1886: 35 (key).

Platylabus rubricapensis Cresson 1887: 191 (cat.); Dalla Torre 1902: 788 (cat.); Bradley 1903: 281 (distr., key, fig.); Berthoumieu 1904: 57 (cat.); Gahan and Rohwer 1918a: 168 (lectotype designation); Brimley 1942: 30 (distr.); Townes 1944: 313 (cat.); Townes and Townes 1951: 281 (distr., cat.); Strickland 1952: 120 (distr.); Heinrich 1962b: 712 (descr., distr., key); Heinrich 1975: 774 (distr., neallotype designation); Barron 1975: 546 (notes); Carlson 1979: 545 (cat., distr., notes); Yu and Horstmann 1997: 680 (cat.); Yu et al. 2016 (cat.).

Original type series

Lectotype ♀, designated by Gahan and Rohwer (1918a, p. 168) (LUEC). Provancher (1882, p. 329) described ‘ Platylabus Rubri Capensis ’ from Québec without specifying the number of specimens included in the description. Gahan and Rohwer (1918a, p. 168) designated the lectotype, addressing it as ‘Type– Female, yellow label 717. 2nd Coll. Pub. Mus., Quebec’. Subsequently, Heinrich (1962b, p. 774) incorrectly employed the term ‘Holotypus’ for the same specimen. Barron (1975, p. 546) considered valid the designation of Gahan and Rohwer (1918a, p. 168).

b) Habitus, lateral view. c) Head, frontal view. d) Labels.

Type locality

Canada, Québec, ‘Cap-Rouge’. No type locality is given on the lectotype labels or in the original description, but the species has been described as ‘Platylabe du-CapRouge’ (= Platylabus from Cap-Rouge). Cap-Rouge is a former city in central Québec.

Type specimens examined (Figure 30)

Holotype: ‘[Yellow label] 717/[White label] Platylabus / rubricapensis /Prov. // [Red label] LECTOTYPE / PLATYLABUS /RUBRI CAPENSIS/ Provancher 717/ Gahan & Rohwer ’15/Barron ‘71’ (images examined).

Updated distribution (Figure 31)

CANADA: Alberta (Strickland 1952), Newfoundland and Labrador (Heinrich 1975), Ontario (Heinrich 1962b), Québec (Provancher 1882); UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Georgia (Fattig 1950), Idaho (Heinrich 1962b), Michigan (Carlson 1979), New York (Heinrich 1962b), Oregon (Carlson 1979), South Dakota (Heinrich 1962b).

Host

Unknown.

Male

The first description of a male was provided by Heinrich (1975, p. 774), who referred to the specimen as the neallotype.

Comments

Townes and Townes (1951, p. 281) recorded the species for Québec, New York and North Carolina. However, as noted by Heinrich (1962b, p. 712), these last two state records refer to Platylabus rubristernatus Heinrich, 1962b (see below). The correct first record for New York must be attributed to Heinrich (1962b, p. 712), while the species has yet to be recorded for North Carolina. Yu et al. (2016) failed to list the type locality (Québec) and all the records provided by Heinrich (1962b, p. 712) and Carlson (1979, p. 545) among the distribution locality of the species.

Provancher (1882) described the species under the name ‘ Rubri Capensis ’. Carlson (1979, p. 545) considered it an ‘invalid’ name because it was not binomial, and proposed the use of Platylabus rubricapensis Provancher, 1886, since the redescription contained a ‘valid binomen’. Subsequent authors kept using rubricapensis Provancher, 1882 as a valid authorship without adding any reason for rejecting Carlson’s (1979) observation (Yu and Horstmann 1997; Yu et al. 2016). We hereby provide a rationale to solve the confusion. Firstly, Carlson (1979) used the term ‘invalid’; however, the name would have been unavailable rather than invalid (see differences between Chapters 4 and 6 of ICZN (1999)). Secondly, the two words together refer to a single entity (i.e., from Red Cape (= Cap Rouge, Québec, Canada)) and are accepted to form a species-group name; they are deemed to form a single word and are united without a hyphen (rubricapensis) (ICZN 1999, Articles 11.9.5 and 32.5.2.2). Therefore, Platylabus rubricapensis Provancher 1882 is an available name.