Forum Entomologi Italiani

Hi Everyone!

I would like to ask some help, for my Colleague about Coccinelidae:

"Dear Colleagues,

Could anyone help clarify the following ladybird problem? Here are three photos (by Tamás Németh).

1) Calvia quatuordecimguttata (Linnaeus, 1758), a common Transpalaearctic species, very common also in Europe.

2) A dark aberration of the same species, very rare in Europe and elsewhere.

3) This species was formerly named Calvia duodecimmaculata (Gebler, 1832). It is stated to be distributed in the Eastern Palaearctic (Siberia, Japan), Himalaya, and North America by Khnzorian (1982). However, in the Coccinellidae part of the Löbl-Smetana catalogue (2007) it is relegated to the synonymy of C. quatuordecimguttata with the note that C. duodecimmaculata is a homonymous name (probably homonym of Coccinella duodecimmaculata Thunberg, 1820). For me it is quite unrealistic that this eastern species is the same as our well-known C. quatuordecimguttata.

My questions: is the species on Figure 3 really synonym of C. quatuordecimguttata? If not, what is its valid name?

Thanks in advance.

Best wishes: Ottó Merkl
Hungarian Natural History Museum"


Tamás

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/tamas_nemeth/