Cassida marginella Fabricius 1775
Creators: name: Sekerka, Lukáš
name: Barclay, Maxwell V. L.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Chrysomelidae
Cassida
Cassida marginella

description: Cassida marginella Fabricius, 1775
(Figs 25–27)
Cassida marginella Fabricius, 1775: 89.
Charidotis punctatostriata Boheman, 1855: 49, syn. nov.
Charidotis herbida Boheman, 1855: 51, syn. nov.
Type locality. Cassida marginella: ‘Brasilia’; Charidotis herbida: ‘Saltogrande Brasiliae’; Charidotis punctatostriata: ‘Bolivia’.
Type material. Cassida marginella: LECTOTYPE (here designated): pinned, ‘Cass: Marginella | Fab.Entom.p. [p] 89. n. 6. [w, hw, bf]’ (BMNH). PARALECTOTYPES: 1 spec., pinned (teneral specimen), without label but pinned in the same series as previous specimen (BMNH). Both specimens are provided with an additional label: ‘LECTOTYPUS [or PARALECTOTYPUS, respectively] | Cassida | marginella | Fabricius, 1775 | L. Sekerka & | M.V.L. Barclay des. 2014 [r, p, cb]’. Charidotis herbida: LECTOTYPE (designated by BOROWIEC 1999): pinned, ‘ Brasil [w, p, s] || Bhn. [w, p, s] || Type. [w, p, s] || NHRS-JLKB | 000021821 [w, p, cb]’ (NHRS). Charidotis punctatostriata: LECTOTYPE (designated by BOROWIEC 1999): pinned, ‘ Boliv [w, p, s] || Guéril [w, p, s] || Type. [w, p, s] || NHRS-JLKB | 000021820 [w, p, cb]’ (NHRS).
Status in ZIMSEN (1964). P. 89; No. 1293. ‘London, 1 specimen. (Kiel 1 specimen)’.
Original description. ‘ C. viridis, thoracis elytrorumque marginibus flavis. Habitat in Brasilia. Mus. Dom. Banks. Statura omnino C. nebulosae.Clypeus rotundatus, integer, viridis, margine flavo. Elytra punctata, viridia, margine flavo. Aliam vidimus simillimam, totam pallescentem, vix distinctam.’ (FABRICIUS 1775).
Current status. Charidotis marginella (Fabricius, 1775).
Remarks. The species was described from the Banks collection and ZIMSEN (1964) mentioned one specimen in BMNH and one in JFUK. Based on the description, Fabricius must have had at least two specimens, as he mentioned one green specimen with a yellow margin and the other uniformly pale-yellow. The Banks Collection includes two specimens, on identical pins, and not one as listed by ZIMSEN (1964); one is apparently the green individual and the other the pale-yellow one mentioned by Fabricius, which is a teneral specimen. Both agree with the original description, as does the JFUK specimen, and there is an argument to include the latter as a syntype (on the assumption that Fabricius retained one).
Charidotis marginella forms together with two allies a natural group of three species de¿ned by uniformly yellow-green dorsum (golden when alive) and latero-posterior slope of elytra irregularly punctate. BOHEMAN (1855) described the two species included in this group and separated them by pronotum ¿nely punctate and elytra more convex with distinct postscutellar hump (C. marginella and C. Àavicans Boheman, 1855) and C. punctatostriata Boheman, 1855 with pronotum distinctly punctate and elytra weakly convex. SPAETH (1936) also mentioned that the ¿rst two species have pronotum more rounded on sides. All three specimens have weakly convex elytra without a distinct hump and rather narrowly rounded lateral sides of pronotum but they differ in the punctation of pronotum. The two BMNH specimens have densely punctate lateral sides of pronotum and are conspeci¿c with typical C. punctatostriata specimens while the JFUK specimen has them weakly and ¿nely punctate and is intermediate to C. marginella sensu BOHEMAN (1855). The punctation of pronotum and convexity of elytra are evidently variable characters as we have studied long series of C. punctatostriata / marginella specimens collected in one locality and there are specimens with weakly convex elytra in combination with ¿nely punctate pronotum while others show densely punctate pronotum and subgibbous elytra with distinct dorsal hump like in C. marginella sensu BOHEMAN (1855). BOHEMAN (1855) also mentioned that the species differs in broader or narrower body respectively, however, this seems to be at least partly affected by gender of specimens and this feature appears also to be different population to population. It is desirable to conduct more ¿eld studies to resolve status of these nominal taxa, however, we here synonymize C. punctatostriata and C. herbida Boheman, 1855 (previously synonym of the latter) with C. marginella because the two BMNH specimens agree with the types of C. punctatostriata and were certainly those used by Fabricius. As mentioned above the JFUK specimen is slightly different and most likely Fabricius obtained it after the description of C. marginella. Therefore we designate the fully sclerotized BMNH specimen as the lectotype and exclude the JFUK specimen from the type series.
description: Published as part of Sekerka, Lukáš & Barclay, Maxwell V. L., 2014, Fabrician types of Cassidinae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) deposited in the Natural History Museum, London, pp. 657-684 in Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 54 (2) on pages 672-673, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5302244