Dicromantispa gounellei (Navás)

Pires Machado, Renato Jose, Li, Hongyu & Ohl, Michael, 2025, Solving taxonomic and nomenclatural problems among the Neotropical species of the family Mantispidae (Insecta, Neuroptera), Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 72 (1), pp. 57-83 : 57-83

Dicromantispa gounellei (Navás)

Fig. 9

Mantispilla gounellei Navás, 1934: 16. Lectotype: male ( MNHN). Type locality: Brazil: Santa Catarina: Joinville: Salto do Piraí.

Notes.

This species was described by Navás (1934) based on a type series from Salto do Piraí, which is an area around a waterfall in the Piraí river, currently located at the municipality of Joinville, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. In the original description, the author was not clear about the number of specimens that the description was based on, but at least one female was mentioned as deposited at MNHN. Later, Penny (1982) stated that he examined the male “ holotype ” of M. gounellei deposited at MNHN. Tauber et al. (2017) also examined the type and confirmed that it was a male. They stated that Penny’s (1982) reference to the putative holotype constitutes a valid lectotype designation. After examining this specimen, we confirm that it is a male specimen.

Mantispilla gounellei was transferred to Mantispa by Penny (1977), but a few years later, Penny himself synonymized it under Mantispa gracilis Erichson (today D. gracilis ) ( Penny, 1982). This synonymy was followed by all subsequent authors ( Penny and Costa 1983; Carvalho and Corseuil 1995; Ohl 2004; Machado and Rafael 2010; Ardila-Camacho and García 2015; Tauber et al. 2017; Ardila-Camacho et al. 2018). However, our examination of the lectotype clearly shows that the species is not a synonym of D. gracilis but a synonym of D. debilis (Gerstaecker, 1888) . The membrane of the base of the forewing in the lectotype is brown (Fig. 9 A, B, F ), different from the hyaline forewing base of D. gracilis . Furthermore, the male terminalia leaves no doubt that this is in fact D. debilis . In this sense, we are herein synonymizing Mantispilla gounellei Navás, 1934 under D. debilis (Gerstaecker, 1888) (new synonym).

Figures

Figure 9. Mantispilla gounellei Navás 1934, lectotype, male. A. Habitus photo, dorsal view; B. Head and thorax, dorsal view; C. Head, frontal view; D, E. Foreleg, inner and outer surfaces; F, G. Left fore and hind wings; H. Labels.