On the mysterious Hylobius huguenini Reitter, 1891 (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Molytinae)

Christoph Germann

doi:10.5852/ejt.2012.20

Abstract

During verifications of museum material for the Catalogue of the Palaearctic Coleoptera, the type specimen of Hylobius huguenini Reitter, 1891 conserved in the Hungarian National Museum was examined. The type specimen had been found by Gustav Huguenin in the Emmental region in Switzerland. The species was never found again and remained therefore mysterious. After the examination of the type specimen, it became clear that Hylobius huguenini belongs to the American genus Heilipodus Kuschel, 1955 (comb. nov.), and there it ranks as a good species next to Heilipodus goeldii sp. nov., described here, and H. polyspilus (Pascoe, 1889), both from Brazil. The type specimens of Heilipodus goeldii sp. nov. were found in the Emil August Göldi-collection in the Natural History Museum of the Burgergemeinde Bern.

Highlights

Hylobius huguenini Reitter, 1891 was described, based on a single female specimen from the Emmental, a region from hilly to mountainous altitudes between the cantons Berne and Lucerne on the northern side of the Swiss Alps
The species was never found again, and its identity remained mysterious. It was included in the Fauna Coleopterorum Helvetica by Stierlin (1898) in the World Catalogue by Dalla Torre & Schenkling (1932), and as a doubtful record in the checklist of the Swiss weevils (Germann 2010)
It was previously stated that – based on pictures of the type specimen – the specimen is more similar to the American species of the genus (Germann 2011)

Summary

Introduction

Hylobius huguenini Reitter, 1891 was described, based on a single female specimen from the Emmental, a region from hilly to mountainous altitudes between the cantons Berne and Lucerne on the northern side of the Swiss Alps. The species was never found again, and its identity remained mysterious It was included in the Fauna Coleopterorum Helvetica by Stierlin (1898) in the World Catalogue by Dalla Torre & Schenkling (1932), and as a doubtful record in the checklist of the Swiss weevils (Germann 2010). When Gustav Huguenin, a Swiss internist and pathologist (1840-1920), collected the specimen on which Reitter (1891) based his description, exhaustive plantations of mostly North American conifers were made around the Entlebuch, a subregion of the Emmental. A promising track to solve the mystery, was European Journal of Taxonomy 20: 1-8 (2012)

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Conclusion