Mentophilus subsulcatus Sharp, 1873

Cupello, Mario, Bouchard, Patrice, Hart, Maximillian & Barclay, Maxwell V. L., 2025, The nomenclature of the Australasian dung beetle genera Mentophilus Castelnau, 1840 and Tesserodon Hope, 1837 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae), Zootaxa 5659 (4), pp. 483-510 : 497

Mentophilus subsulcatus Sharp, 1873

Mentophilus subsulcatus Sharp, 1873: 264 . Name-bearing type: Unsexed holotype by inferred monotypy at Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris ( Matthews 1974). Type locality: Western Australia, Australia. Remarks: Sharp (1873) did not mention how many specimens he saw for the description of M. subsulcatus and did not explicitly fix a sole name-bearing type. He gave, however, a specific figure for the length of his new species, “Long. 3 lin. ½”, which might suggest he only had one specimen in front of him, the holotype by monotypy. This was Matthews’ (1974) implied interpretation, which we do not dispute. Also, Sharp (1873) limited himself to saying that the species originated simply from Australia —“Hab. Nov.- Holl. occ.”—but, given the distribution, the type material is certainly from somewhere in Western Australia.

Distribution: Western coast of Australia, from the Shark Bay area south to Port Denison ( Matthews 1974; Atlas of Living Australia 2024). The Queensland record found in the Atlas of Living Australia (2024) is certainly inaccurate.