Forum Entomologi Italiani

Un altro cetonide preso in Turchia, mediamente frequente su grossi fiori di cardo: anche in questo caso le pinzette si sono rivelate molto utili contro le spine di cardo:

sbg. Potosia

Protaetia (Potosia) cuprina (Motschulsky, 1849) - Cetoniidae

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Research Fields
Taxonomy, ecology, biomonitoring , faunistic of Staphylinidae

How recent is this list? I have the description of Potosia bessarabica Panin, 1940 and it is nothing more than a variability of Protaetia (Potosia) cuprea ssp. metallica Herbst, 1782 and not of P. cuprina ssp. transfuga Schaufuss. Panin himself made a description of Potosia cuprea ab. transfuga and his description is different from P. bessarabica. I give you my work about this, I cannot attach here because exceeds 4M, but you can get it from this link http://cl.ly/0p241i2j0N3d082X2k1Y It is my paper so no problem to use it. It is in Romanian, but I will answer to your questions if you will have.

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Ciao
Adrian

I think I have a checklist from the Internet
http://www.gorodinski.ru/checklist-ceto ... rctic.html
http://www.insectavaria.com/checklists2_7.html

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Research Fields
Taxonomy, ecology, biomonitoring , faunistic of Staphylinidae

Well, as I know, the cuprina is still a subspecies of cuprea, but well, I can get wrong here. I have only cuprina transfuga in my country, I have to see a cuprina cuprina, but I am sure I have even natural hybrids between cuprea metallica and cuprina, that makes me to keep thinking at cuprina as a subspecies of cuprea.

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Ciao
Adrian

Thanks Adrian, interesting work
I understand that also in Romania the distinction between cuprea obscura and c. metallica is puzzling, as in North Italy. Here, there are areas of low mountain where the two taxa seem to mix or occur as intermediate forms.

If I well understand the main body of your work, you tried to part the different taxa using a morphometric approach, but this failed and concluded that the taxa mentioned should be treated as subspecies. Am I right?

Cheers, Marco

Both cuprina and metallica are treated at the species level in the Catalogue of Paleartic Coleoptera (vol. 3, 2006).
I have no particular reason to accept or reject this treatment, I just know that the "cuprea group" uis a mess ... therefore (as a personal choice) I am used to that taxonomic arrangement for the sake of semplicity/convention.

Potosia (Potosia) rhodensis Rataj, 1998
Current status. Junior subjective synonym of Protaetia (Potosia) cuprea cuprina Motschulsky,
1849, see GALANT (2000).

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Research Fields
Taxonomy, ecology, biomonitoring , faunistic of Staphylinidae

Thank you Marco. I tried to use morphometric approach to see what level are they, because in that period, I had only literature from Panin old Micsic (cannot remember now) and a French author's monography (I am in hurry and cannot look now) and those taxa were treated in different levels. So I was happy to get some P. cuprea cuprea from mr. Claudio Sola and I could make these measurements. I still believe they are subspecies of cuprea, instead of abberations or good species.

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Ciao
Adrian

Sorry, I answer so late, I have a good picture of the holotype of Potosia bessarabica, described by Panin. He defined the 'new' species about the trilobated shape of the mesosternal process. But I have 1 specimen of P. cuprea metallica with the same shaped process in my collection. Now, seeing the picture of the 'holotype', I think P. bessarabica is a junior synonym of P. cuprea metallica and not of P. cuprea cuprina (P. cuprina in CoPCa). I am going to do a DNA sequence on the three taxa: P. cuprea obscura, P. cuprea metallica and P. cuprea cuprina. Then will see if they are species of subspecies. I know about the paper of Vondracek et all (2018) published in Plos One, but I want to see my results.
That's why I am interested who synonimized P. bessarabica to P. cuprina.

Pictures taken by Maximilian Teodorescu.

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Ciao
Adrian

Hello Adrian, I do not have a definitve answer to your question.
However, in

Miksic R., 1987. Monographie der Cetoniinae der paläarktischen und orientalischen Region. Band IV. Forstinstitut in Sarajevo. 1-608

page 230, bessarabica is listed as a synonym of cuprina, and there is a footnote explaining that the purported diagnostic character (mesosternal shape) is just an anomaly found sometimes in Potosia.
This explanation may be a hint that he was introducing this sinonymy for the first time, although this is not formally stated.
About the attribution to cuprina rather than to metallica or any other taxon in the cuprea-group, I don't know. Maybe this is related to the taxa concepts and to their ranges according to Miksic. As I don't read German access to Miksic dissertations is quite complicated for me.
Sure enough, the pictured specimen fits very well with the common concept of metallica.

Thanks for sharing your work :-)

Thank you so much for this new stop in my research. The problem is Miksic did not see the specimen, he just saw some b/w photographs and maybe he could translate the original description, which it is in Romanian. I thought myself the holotype was disappeared. I have the gratitude to Dr. Daniel Kurzeluk who found and got up in the light the specimen and to Maximilian Teodorescu, who took the good quality photographs.

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Ciao
Adrian

We need to define the limits in definition of a species and subspecies. I am used with "...a species is an unit with the same descendence and it is reproductive isolated by other similar units". So two species usually not making hybrids, or if so, the hybrids are sterile and cannot make populations. So, if they can make hybrids, they are subspecies. This makes sense.

I attach a series of hybrids between P. cuprea obscura and P. cuprea metallica, pictures taken by Maximilian Teodorescu

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Ciao
Adrian

Interesting. I have seen specimens with similar appearance from low altitude sites on the southern Alps, where the two taxa are expected to meet/overlap.

Sure enough lack of reproductive barrier is a strong clue against specific separation, and is in agreement with the results of molecular phylogeny, where obscura and metallica are "mixed" in the same clade.
However, the same phylogeny also produced a strange mix of cuprina and ignicollis (partly with low support values), which is rather strange, given the very different appearance of adults and their different geographic ranges.