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Home » Taxonomy » Sphingidae » Sphinginae » Sphingini » "Psilogramma genus-group" » Macropoliana » Macropoliana ferax - (Rothschild & Jordan, 1916)
Taxonomy
Macropoliana ferax (Rothschild & Jordan, 1916)
Nomenclature
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Subtribe: "Psilogramma genus-group"Genus: Macropoliana
Species:
Macropoliana ferax (Rothschild & Jordan, 1916)
Usage:
valid
Type data:
SYNTYPES "a series" [4♂ 3♀] German East Africa [Tanzania]: Manow [NHMUK]. A male has been labelled as manuscript lectotype in NHMUK (M.R. Honey, pers. comm.).
A female in MNHU and another in SMTD from “Manow, D.O. Afr.” and “Manow, D.O. Africa” respectively, were claimed by Eitschberger & Melichar (2016) (STI 21085) to be “paralectotypes”. However, there is no evidence that they formed part of the “series” that Rothschild & Jordan had before them when they described Poliana natalensis ferax and they are not considered here to be syntypic material. Eitschberger & Melichar (2016: 27, fig. 4 F) (STI 21085) also reproduced a monochrome photograph of a further female that they found in one of the three sphingid files of Franz Eichler (which, together with the Eichler collection, are now in coll. Eitschberger). The specimen bears a handwritten label with the locality data, “D. Ost-Afrika, Manow”, and on the basis of this, Eitschberger & Melichar claimed that it should also have belonged to the syntype series. However, there is again no evidence that Rothschild & Jordan had this specimen before them when writing the description of Poliana natalensis ferax; indeed, it does not even bear the same printed labels as the syntypes in NHMUK, and so it too is not considered here to be syntypic material, but rather a specimen from the type locality, most likely collected at a later date.
Taxonomic Notes:
COMB. REV.
Proposed as a subspecies of Poliana natalensis. Raised to species status and transferred to Macropoliana by Carcasson, 1968, Jl. E. Afr. nat. Hist. Soc. natn. Mus. 26 (3): 60. Downgraded again to a subspecies of Macropoliana natalensis by Carcasson, 1972, J. Ent. (B) 41: 177. Reinstated as a good species by d'Abrera, 1987, Sphingidae Mundi: 16. Transferred to Covelliana by Eitschberger & Melichar, 2016, Neue ent. Nachr. 71: 26. Mistakenly transferred back to Poliana by Kitching and Rougerie et al., 2018, Biodivers. Data J. 6: e22236.
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Synonyms: 12