Forficula auricularia, LINNAEUS, 1758

González-Miguéns, Rubén, Muñoz-Nozal, Eva, Jiménez-Ruiz, Yolanda, Mas-Peinado, Paloma, Ghanavi, Hamid R. & García-París, Mario, 2020, Speciation patterns in the Forficula auricularia species complex: cryptic and not so cryptic taxa across the western Palaearctic region, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 190, pp. 788-823 : 806-807

FORFICULA AURICULARIA LINNAEUS, 1758

( FIGS 10, 11)

Forficula auricularia Linnaeus, 1758: 423 . Terra typica : ‘Habitat in Europa’. Type specimen LINN 6792 in the Insect Collection of the Linnean Society of London, UK ( Steinmann, 1989; http://linnean-online.org/24117/).

Forficula major deGeer, 1773: 545. Terra typica : ‘Il ne se trouve en Suede que deux especes de Perce-oreilles, dont je vai doner la déscription’. Types unknown ( Steinmann, 1989) .

? Forficula infumata Megerle von Mühlfeld , in Charpentier, 1825: 70. Terra typica : ‘Habitat in Europa australi’. Types unknown ( Steinmann, 1989). The assigning of F. infumata to F. auricularia needs revision. The description of F. infumata fits well within F. auricularia , but its status is uncertain. Fischer (1853) treated F. infumata (and the misidentification of Petagna, 1792, as F. bipunctata ), as a synonym of Forficula lurida Fischer, 1853 (type locality: Istanbul). Harz & Kaltenbach (1976), also treated F. infumata together with Forficula orientalis Burr, 1900 (type locality: ‘Constantinople’) as synonyms of F. lurida . However, the taxonomic status of F. lurida needs to be reevaluated ( Dohrn, 1865; Scudder, 1877).

Forficula forcipata var. caucasica Kolenati, 1846: 72 . Terra typica : ‘Habitat in Caucasi regione subalpina et al pina; etiam propoe pagum Tschaikaent, montis Kaepes-Dagh, in provincia Transcaucasica Elisabethopol’. Type specimen at unknown location ( Steinmann, 1989).

Forficula auricularia var. macrolabia Fieber, 1853: 254 . Terra typica : ‘Durch das ganze Gebiet, in beiden Formen unter Dünger in Gärten, unter Baumrinden … var. ss aus Syrien’.

Forficula auricularia var. cyclolabia Fieber, 1853: 254 . Terra typica : ‘Durch das ganze Gebiet, in beiden Formen unter Dünger in Gärten, unter Baumrinden. var. α. sah ich auch aus Teneriffa, Amerika …’.

Forficula auricularia f. brachylabia Semenov-Tian-Shansky, 1911: 25 (non Forficula tomis var. brachylabia Fieber, 1855: 90 ). Terra typica : not indicated.

Forficula auricularia silanoides Karny, 1911: 160 . Terra typica : ‘… Sarajewo…’. Type specimen at the Naturhistorisches Musum (Wien, Austria) ( Steinmann, 1989). The single specimen described by Karny (1911) likely represents an individual variation of F.auricularia , but its taxonomic status needs to be revised ( Harz & Kaltenbach, 1976). Steinmann (1989) indicated erroneously Tunis, as type locality of F. a. silanoides.

Forficula abrutiana Borelli, 1916: 1 . Terra typica : ‘... Valle Fondillo ... Villetta Barrea’. Two syntypes preserved at the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali (Torino) ( Fontana et al., 2004). Synonymized with F. auricularia by Vigna Taglianti in Failla et al. (1995), treated as a valid species by Harz & Kaltenbach (1976) and Steinmann (1993), and finally placed in synonymy with F. auricularia after examination of type specimens by Fontana et al. (2004).

Differential diagnosis: Forficula auricularia , Forficula mediterranea and Forficula dentata are cryptic species. We have not found any morphological characters that can be used to differentiate between these species. We are able to diagnose F. auricularia only through phylogenetic analyses of nuclear and mtDNA data (see Results and Discussion).

Taxonomic comments: The oldest available name for the entire species group is Forficula auricularia Linnaeus, 1758 , described from ‘Europa’ ( Linnaeus, 1758). Assignation of the name Forficula auricularia Linnaeus, 1758 to ‘species A’ is based on the phylogenetic position of the samples from Uppsala ( Sweden) within mtDNA clade A. Although the type locality of F. auricularia is ‘Europa’, Linnaeus studied and was a professor at the University of Uppsala and, additionally, Linnaeus (1761) reported the presence of F. auricularia in Sweden in his book Fauna Svecica. We , therefore, presume he was likely describing the common earwigs found in Sweden when he described the species. No locality information is attached to the single specimen of F. auricularia (LINN 6792) (http:// linnean-online.org /24117/) held in the Insect Collection at the Linnean Society. Therefore, lectotype designations cannot be used to narrow down the type locality. Despite this, we consider the assignment of this species name to the clade including Swedish populations as appropriate. In case phylogroup C should prove to be an independent taxon, the oldest available name used for any earwig of the F. auricularia species complex that is geographically assignable to phylogroup C is Forficula forcipata var. caucasica Kolenati, 1846 , whose type locality was described as ‘… in Caucasi regione subalpina et al pina; etiam prope pagum Tschaikaent, montis Kaepes-Dagh, in provincia Transcaucasica Elisabethopol’ ( Kolenati, 1846), now Çaykənd [Chaykend] in Azerbaijan.

Geographic range: According to our genetic data, F. auricularia is present in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Sweden in Europe and in eastern areas of the United States (Massachusetts) and in Iran ( Fig. 1; Table 1). Previously published reports cited its presence in France (in sympatry with F. dentata ), Italy, Turkey, eastern Canada, eastern USA and Australia ( Wirth et al., 1998; Guillet et al., 2000b; Quarrell et al., 2018).