Chironomus sp.

Chironomus " polaris Holmgr. " sensu Lundström (1915: 6).

Holmgren (1869: 46) had described males and females from Spitzbergen he had identified as Chironomus polaris Kirby, 1824. Lundström (1915) stated that Holmgren had hardly ("vix") identified C. polaris Kirby correctly. However, Lundström apparently thought possibly after a comparison with Holmgren material that one of the Siberian specimens he was studying was conspecific with Holmgren's.

The single male described by Lundström could not be located for the present study. The name under which it was treated, Chironomus " polaris Holmgren ", is not separately available under ICZN rules. If instead a separate " C. polaris " were considered available from Lundström (1915), this name would be permanently invalid as a junior primary homonym of both C. polaris Kirby and C. polaris Boheman, 1856. To clarify the biological identity of the species, Lundström's missing specimen and those of Holmgren's (at least any seen by Lundström) would have to be compared to the type of C. polaris Kirby (at BMNH) and possibly also to C. hyperboreus Staeger, 1845 which Holmgren (1869) had considered a junior synonym of the former. Lindeberg & Wiederholm (1979: 102 / 103) after having seen "all that is left of C. polaris " (? = the specimen at BMNH?) claim that it is "not the type ".