Cyrtonota adspersa

Cyrtonota adspersa (Boheman, 1850)

Mesomphalia adspersa Boheman, 1850: 355 (original description).

Mesomphalia luteipennis Boheman, 1850: 357 (original description), syn. nov.

Type localities. Mesomphalia adspersa: ‘Brasilia’; M. luteipennis: ‘Brasilia’.

Type material examined. Mesomphalia adspersa: LECTOTYPE (designated by BOROWIEC 1999a): ♀, pinned, ‘ Brasil [w, p, s] || Dupont [w, p, s] || Type. [w, p, s] || LECTOTYPE | des. L. Borowiec [r, p, cb] || NHRS-JLKB | 000022081 [w, p, cb]’ (NHRS).

Mesomphalia luteipennis: SYNTYPES: ♂, pinned: ‘E. Coll | Chevt. [w, p, cb] || 20. [w, p, s] || Mesomphalia ♂ | luteipennis Bhn | flavipennis Chv | Brasilia [w, hw by Chevrolat, s] || 67·56 [w, p, s]’ (BMNH); ♀, pinned, ‘E. Coll | Chevt. [w, p, cb] || 21. [w, p, s] || flavipennis | Dupt. [w, hw by? Dupont, s] || Mesomphalia | luteipennis Bhn ♀ | flavipennis Chv | Brasilia [w, hw by Chevrolat, s] || 67·56 [w, p, s]’ (BMNH).

Remarks. BOHEMAN (1850) described Mesomphalia luteipennis from at least two specimens as he provided length span, compared it to M. lacordairei Boheman, 1850 and stated that the material came from collection of Chevrolat. This taxon was unknown to subsequent authors. SPAETH (1914) transferred it to Pseudomesomphalia (= Stolas) and BOROWIEC (1999a) synonymized it with Stolas lacordairei. Both acts were probably based only on the primary description. I have found two syntypes in BMNH and they belong to Cyrtonota not to Stolas as they have antennae with five basal segments shiny while the latter genus has only four. Mesomphalia luteipennis is morphologically identical to C. adspersa and in my opinion represents its colour morph with yellow elytra. Typical C. adspersa has elytra with yellow reticulation enclosing large black inside cells. In M. luteipennis the elytra are nearly uniformly yellow, however, on basal half near humeri there is clearly visible slightly darker reticulation similarly shaped to that of C. adspersa. There is a third specimen in the BMNH labelled by Chevrolat as M. luteipennis, which has well defined reticulate pattern but I do not include it in the type series as such coloured specimen was not mentioned in the original description. Males of M. luteipennis have subcordiform elytra with broadly explanate margin and emarginate humeri with outer corner angulate while females have broadly oval elytra with less expanded margins and subrounded humeri. Exactly the same shapes are present in C. adspersa and therefore I synonymize M. luteipennis with the latter species. Since both taxa were described in the same publication I followed the Principle of the first reviser (ICZN 1999: Article 24.2) and chose the name C. adspersa as it was previously correctly applied and it is also more commonly represented in the collections.

Distribution. Brazil: Goiás, Pará (BOROWIEC 1996), Tocantins (BOROWIEC 2002).