Ábrahám Levente (szerk.): Válogatott tanulmányok VII. - Natura Somogyiensis 22. (Kaposvár, 2012)

Ábrahám L.: "On the other hand, what is this Eastern aeschnoides?" Morton 1926 - an undescribed Palpares species from the Eastern Mediterranean (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae)

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Natura Somogyiensis

A few years before the species was combined to genus Palpares, the knowledge of the distribution of P. libelloides (as "Myrmecoleon libelluloides') was completed by Burmeister (1839) by adding North Africa and the South of Europe to the species distribution.

In "Histoire Naturelle des Insectes", Rambur (1842) described the genus Palpares and he listed all the taxa described or illustrated in his earlier works (Savigny 1805-1814, Klug in Ehrenberg 1834) under the name of "P. libelluloides Linné". However, the distribution of the species was not clarified. He described a new morphological form of the species, marked as "VarietéA". He reported its occurrence from "TAndalousie etdu cap de Bonne-Espérance Andalusia" (South of Spain and South Africa). By doing so he pointed out the morphological characteristics of the later described Palpares hispanus Hagen, 1860, but he did not recognize the taxonomical status of Palpares papilionoides (Klug in Ehrenberg, 1834) by examining only one female specimen (more information below).

The usage of names such as libelloides or libelluloides, is still a nomenclatural controversy. In the voluminous monographs, Aspöck et al. (2001) and Krivokhatsky (2011) preferred the traditional names (Palpares libelluloides). On the other hand, in Stange’s (2004) monograph and Oswald’s (2007) database the name Palpares libelloides was recommended. Krivokhatsky (2011) suggested the usage of libelluloides, because this was the name the topotype of this species was referred as (Chenu and Desmarest 1859). The current status of Palpares libelloides (Linnaeus, 1764) is a valid (Stange 2004).

The history of the name of Myrmeleon aeschnoides up until present

Myrmeleon aeschnoides - Illiger in Rossi 1807 (nomen nudum)

Palpares aeschnoides (Illiger, 1807) - Hagen 1866 (Comb)

In the second edition of" Fauna Etrusca" (Illiger in Rossi 1807), the German entomologist, Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger (1775-1813) completed the work of Rossi (1790) (Fig. 11). In this book a new name of Palpares libelloides was mentioned, marked by Illiger in Rossi (1807) as "9 M. Aeschnoides Mus. Hellw. Hoffm."

In the editorial preface, Illiger in Rossi (1807) stated that the symbol in front of the name of the species, referred to the synonym, which had never been used in the literature before. He found this name in the collection of Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig (1743-1831) and Johann Centurius Hoffmann Graf von Hoffmannsegg (1766-1849).

The material collected between 1795-1801, in Hungary, Austria, Italy and Portugal by Hoffmannsegg was given to Illiger for revision when he stationed in Braunschweig (Brunswiek, Germany). His collection was the first one in the "Berlin museum" (ZMHB- Museum fur Naturkunde der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Bereich Zoologisches Museum, Berlin, Germany), where Illiger was employed as a curator. Illiger in Rossi (1807) in his work pointed out that the species (as "Hemerobius speciosus" and "Myrmeleon libelluloides") described by Linnaeus (1758, 1764) had been mixed up by certain researchworkers. It is probably due to the fact that Linnaeus (1758, 1764) reported the occurrence of the two species as identical. Illiger in Rossi (1807) mentioned the name "Myrmeleon Aeschnoides" while comparing the specimens in his collection with the descriptions and illustrations of Palpares libelloides in other works (Linnaeus 1758, Drury 1770). Therefore Myrmeleon aeschnoides is a nomen nudum- that is, no adequate description of such species was ever published, it is only a naked name used in Hoffmannsegg’s a collection. During my research I have tried to find the specimen labeled as "aeschnoides" in the Berlin (ZMHB) and the Braunschweig (SNMBR) museums but no specimens with the exact name were found.