Manodactylus gaujoni Clavijo-Bustos & Castro-Vargas & Neita Moreno 2024, comb. nov.
Creators: name: Clavijo-Bustos, Julián
name: Castro-Vargas, María I.
name: Neita Moreno, Jhon César
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Scarabaeidae
Manodactylus
Manodactylus gaujoni

description: Manodactylus gaujoni (Ohaus, 1909) comb. nov.
Figs 1, 5 A, B
Macrodactylus gaujoni Ohaus, 1909: 95 (original description).
Manodactylus gaujoni Moser, 1919: 44, new junior objective synonym.
Type material.
Manodactylus gaujoni Moser, 1919: lectotype male (MFNB), examined on photos: “ Equateur / Loja / Abbé Gaujon ” [white printed label] // “ LECTOTYPE / Manodactylus ♂ / gaujoni / Moser 1919 / des. J. Fuhrmann & / F. Z. Vaz. de. Mello. 2014 ” [red handwritten label]. Lectotype designated by Fuhrmann and Vaz-de-Mello, 2017. Macrodactylus gaujoni Ohaus, 1909: lectotype male of Manodactylus gaujoni Moser, 1919 designated here as the neotype (see under Remarks), with the additional label “ NEOTYPE / Macrodactylus gaujoni / Ohaus, 1909 / Des: Clavijo-Bustos, Castro-Vargas & Neita Moreno, 2024 ” [red printed label].
Diagnosis.
Manodactylus gaujoni shares with M. paramicola sp. nov. the overall appearance, black color, shiny, with bicolored legs; clypeus trapezoidal; clypeus and frons forming a subpentagonal area delimited in the frons by a smooth raised narrow area extending from anterior angles to the vertex; eyes small, interocular distance around six to seven times the dorsal width of the eye; pronotum with micropunctures when viewed under high magnification; and each elytron with five striae between suture and humeral callus, 10 in total, and the interstriae convex.
Manodactylus gaujoni can be distinguished from M. paramicola sp. nov. by the following characters: body of a more lustrous color, with femora and tarsi reddish-brown, but tibiae dark brown; clypeus only slightly emarginate medially, with borders on each side of medial emargination widely rounded and slightly upturned; the subpentagonal area formed by clypeus and frons flat; the pronotum also with small, rounded, setigerous punctures but only on the borders; each elytral stria shallow, with a regular row of small, rounded punctures distanced by 1–4 times one puncture diameter; interstriae only slightly convex.
Remarks.
Ohaus (1909: 95) in the brief description of Macrodactylus gaujoni mentioned that many specimens of Abbé Gaujon from Loja (Ecuador) that were sent to Europe, were collected by the Ecuadorian native Angelo Ordoñez (referred as Angelo Ordonnez by Ohaus, 1909: 95). Ohaus also contacted Angelo Ordoñez and when they both were going to Angelo’s house in Loja, Ohaus collected a black specimen of ‘ Macrodactylus ’ with long red legs, which he named Macrodactylus gaujoni. On the other hand, Moser (1919: 44) described the new genus Manodactylus declaring it to be similar to Macrodactylus and with the type species Manodactylus gaujoni, whose description was based on specimens of Abbé Gaujon also from Loja. According to Moser (1919), Manodactylus gaujoni is characterized by being black with red or reddish-brown femora and tarsi, diagnostic characters that are also visible in the lectotype of Manodactylus gaujoni Moser, 1919 (Fig. 1). So far, the type specimen of Macrodactylus gaujoni Ohaus, 1909 has not been found (Fuhrmann and Vaz-de-Mello 2017) and is presumably lost.
Therefore, we here designate the male lectotype of Manodactylus gaujoni Moser, 1919 as the neotype for Macrodactylus gaujoni Ohaus, 1909. Our proposal is based on the congruence between the type locality of both species, the fact that the Ecuadorian Angelo Ordoñez was presumably involved in the collecting of both type specimens, and the diagnostic color pattern of the specimens mentioned in both descriptions. This will give stability to the species name making both taxa objective synonyms, with Macrodactylus gaujoni Ohaus, 1909 as the senior synonym. Macrodactylus gaujoni Ohaus, 1909 is transferred to the genus Manodactylus.
It is important to mention that the male paralectotype deposited in SDEI (Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut. Müncheberg, Germany) has an Ohaus’ label “ Macrodactylus Gaujoni / Cotype Moser ”, but also has another label indicating that it belongs to Abbé Gaujon’s specimens (as the lectotype and other paralectotypes of Manodactylus gaujoni from Moser) (Fuhrmann and Vaz-de-Mello 2017). This possibly suggests that both Ohaus and Moser referred to the same species, and probably a misunderstanding led to the double description of M. gaujoni. The simplicity of Ohaus’ ‘ description’ might indicate that he used an unpublished name of a species by Moser, or alternatively Moser could have tried to complete Ohaus’ description while describing his new genus placing the species. However, available information is not enough to confirm one of these two scenarios. Although, this specimen is the only one having an Ohaus label, we do not consider it to be the lost syntype of Macrodactylus gaujoni because it was collected by Abbé Gaujon and not by Ohaus as stated in the original description.
Distribution.
Ecuador, province of Loja; Peru, department of Piura (needs confirmation) (Fig. 6). The type series of Manodactylus gaujoni Moser, 1919 is from Loja, Ecuador (Moser 1919). Ohaus (1909) mentioned for Macrodactylus gaujoni that there is a hill called Hornillos, and a road from there goes to ‘ San Francizco’, the highest peak of the Eastern Cordillera visible from Loja and located about 3000 m asl (Ohaus 1909: 95). From this peak, there is a range from west to east, almost reaching the mouth of River Sabanilla in Zamora; this range is narrow, but with some broad points similar to ‘ San Francizco’ (Ohaus 1909: 95).
description: Published as part of Clavijo-Bustos, Julián, Castro-Vargas, María I. & Neita Moreno, Jhon César, 2024, A second species of the genus Manodactylus Moser, 1919 (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Melolonthinae, Macrodactylini) from the highlands of Colombia, pp. 209-217 in Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 71 (1) on pages 209-217, DOI: 10.3897/dez.71.118923