Poliana Rothschild & Jordan, 1903

Eitschberger & Melichar (2016: 8) (STI 21085), correctly demonstrated that the holotype of Poliana buchholzi was not a specimen of the species that had hitherto been generally referred to under than name but of a taxon closely related to what was then called Macropoliana natalensis. However, they failed to notice that Poliana buchholzi is the type species of Poliana, and so when they transferred it to Macropoliana, that genus should have been synonymized with a rediagnosed Poliana, and Taboribia reinstated for wintgensi and the species related to it. On this basis, Kitching & Rougerie et al. (2018) (STI 21830) undertook the necessary taxonomic changes for the species that at that time were included in those genera. Unfortunately, however, Kitching & Rougerie et al. (2018) had overlooked Eitschberger & Melichar’s (2017: 1-2) (STI 21737) correct observation that this was a case of a misidentified type species and the interests of taxonomic stability would be best served by retaining the current concepts of Macropoliana and Poliana, with Taboribia as a junior synonym of the latter. However, to this end, they then went on to state that they planned to make a submission to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to resolve this matter accordingly. This was unfortunate because it is not a matter for the Commission; Eitschberger & Melichar (2017) could have actually undertaken the necessary work themselves and published it in their paper on Poliana, thereby settling the matter. Under Article 70.3 of the Code, “If an author discovers that a type species was misidentified (…), the author may select, and thereby fix as the type species, the species that will, in his or her judgment, best serve stability and universality” by one of two means. In the current case, Article 70.3.2 should be applied to fix “the taxonomic species actually involved in the misidentification”, i.e., Protoparce laucheana. Doing so would then retain the current concepts of both Poliana and Macropoliana. However, implementing Article 70.2.3 also requires that “the author must refer to this Article and cite together both the name of the previously cited as type species and the name of the species to be selected”. This was not done by Eitschberger & Melichar (2017) and so the situation currently remains unresolved. However, as the arguments of Eitschberger & Melichar (2017) regarding taxonomic stability and maintenance of prevailing usage are compelling, the taxonomy is here corrected to reinstate Poliana and Macropoliana in their previous concepts (prior to Kitching & Rougerie et al., 2018) and return Taboribia to synonymy with Poliana.