Gerstaeckerella riedeliana (Fischer von Waldheim)

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

Gerstaeckerella riedeliana (Fischer von Waldheim)

Raphidia riedeliana Fischer von Waldheim, 1834: 329. Holotype or syntypes: sex unknown ( ZIL or ZMUM). Type locality: Brazil

Notes.

This species is very similar to the Raphidia margaritacea , they were both described in the same paper by Fischer von Waldheim (1834) in his study about the Orthoptera and Neuroptera from Brazil. According to Ohl (2004) the type series was supposedly deposited at ZIL or ZMUM, but we were unable to get information about it. It cannot be excluded that the type material is lost. After its publication the species was synonymized under Mantispa irrorata Erichson, 1839 (today Gerstaeckerella irrorata ) by Hagen (1861) despite the fact that the oldest name is R. riedeliana . This synonym was posteriorly followed by Penny and Costa (1983) and Carvalho and Corseuil (1991). However as discussed by Ohl (2004), despite the synonym proposed by Hagen (1861), the same author posteriorly considered the species as valid again ( Hagen 1866). In this sense, Ohl (2004) decided to keep the species as valid but transferred it to Gerstaeckerella based on the original description. Since the location of the type material is still unknown, we refrain from proposing any taxonomic decision here, keeping it as a valid species in Gerstaeckerella as proposed by Ohl (2004) and followed by Machado and Martins (2022).