Glenea albosignatipennis Breuning 1950

Glenea albosignatipennis Breuning, 1950

(Figures 37–38, 44)

Glenea (s. str.) albosignatipennis Breuning, 1950: 260. TL: India, North Belgaum, Bombay. TD: IFRI.

Glenea (Glenea) albosignatipennis: Breuning, 1956a: 61; Breuning, 1956b: 713.

Type specimen examined

Holotype, 1 ♀, on twig of, Tarewadi 2600 feet, N. Belgaum, 1938.V.21, J.A. Graham (IFRI).

Other specimens examined

India: 1 ♂, ‘ paratype’ (unmentioned in Breuning 1950 and therefore not type), Somwarpet, Coorg, S. India (NHMB, ex FREY). 1 ♀, Somwarpet, Coorg, S. India (BMNH, with a yellow label ‘ Data unreliable. See Brit. Mus. 1949–314’.)

Description complementary to Breuning (1950, 1956b). The only examined male specimen (Figure 38) matches with females very well in colour and patterns of pubescent maculae. Male with antennae longer than body length, labrum medially provided with two pairs of suberect, distinctly elongate yellowish brown setae arising from respective punctures, sternite VII with a distinct umbo prior to apical opening (Figure 38 (b)), apex rounded. Both male and female with simple claws.

Distribution

India (Karnataka and Maharashtra).

Remarks

Breuning (1950: 261) described this species based on ‘Longueur 12 mm. Largeur 3 mm 1/ 3. Type une female de North Belgaum, Bombay (J.A. Graham)’, wrote something about males in the original description, and repeated the sexual difference in Breuning (1956b), also only mentioning the holotype female (Figure 37). However, one male specimen in NHMB was labelled as paratype and with a handwritten identification label by Breuning (Figure 38 (d)). Since it was not mentioned in the original literature (Breuning 1950), it cannot be treated as paratype.

The second author examined another female of this species deposited at BMNH, with the same locality label as the male in Figure 38, but with a yellow label noted ‘Data unreliable. See Brit. Mus. 1949–314’. Michael Geiser (m.geiser@nhm.ac.uk, 7 January 2020) from BMNH informed us that

The famous Cerambycids specialist E.F. Gilmour was caught stealing specimens from the London museum back in the 1940s. Most of his specimens were later returned to the museum, but there was a suspicion that he could have swapped around some of the labels and faked some of the data to wipe out his traces. As far as I am aware, the vast majority of the specimens still have the correct labels, but the curators at the time added this label as a cautionary measure, because in some cases the label data could have been compromised

The male specimen in NHMB (Figure 38) having the exact same locality label proves that the female in BMNH has the correct labels. Therefore, the locality Somwarpet, Coorg, S. India, is correct; it is now in Karnataka state, south India, which is situated nearly 600 km away from the type locality Tarewadi village, now in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra state.