Vates Burmeister 1838

Vates Burmeister, 1838

Mello-Leitão (1937) described Pseudovates hyalostigma Mello-Leitão, 1937, from a unique specimen from Pará, Brazil. According to the original source, the type specimen is deposited at the Museu Nacional de Rio de Janeiro (Type No. 17612); however, this specimen could not be located. Fortunately, the original description and its accompanying figures are detailed enough to recognize the actual identity of this specimen as Vates biplagiata Sjöstedt, 1930. Mello-Leitão wrongly assumed his type specimen to be a male; however, it is clearly a female. On the other hand, Piza (1983) described Vates obscura on the basis of a single male specimen, currently deposited at ESALQ (Fig. 12). A closer examination also revealed it to be conspecific to V. biplagiata. We also found out that Piza’s specimen was not a male, as originally reported, but a female instead. Interestingly, the ID label bears a “female” symbol, as it can also be confirmed based on the photo included along the original description; the publication however clearly states “male”. We establish the following new synonymies:

Vates biplagiata Sjöstedt, 1930

= Pseudovates hyalostigma Mello-Leitão, 1937 n. syn. = Vates obscura Toledo Piza, 1983 n. syn.

Vates biplagiata is one of the most distinctive members of Vates, as it exhibits a particular combination of characters not seen in other known species, such as the strong denticulation of the pronotal edges, the distinctive bicolored pattern of the costal area of the mesothoracic wings (mostly green with a longitudinal yellow strip along the costal vein) and the brown marking along the distal edge of the discoidal area of the same in the females. This is a rather common species with a typical Amazonian distribution, currently known for Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Peru and Venezuela (Lombardo & Agabiti 2001; Ehrmann 2002; Agudelo et al. 2007). Medellin & Salazar (2011) described the male genitalia.