Podisus cornutus

Podisus cornutus (Dallas, 1851) sp. inq. Arma cornuta Dallas 1851: 98. Podisus cornutus Stål 1870: 54; Thomas 1992: 81; Roell et al. 2023: 32. Apateticus (Podisus) cornutus Kirkaldy 1909: 18. Comments: The type of Arma cornuta Dallas was not found in the NHMUK collection (Roell et al. 2023) and is probably lost. Likewise, Thomas (1992) mentioned that he did not locate the type in the collection and that “Distant (1880) had remarked that it was not in the “National Collection” and that Walker had not included it in his catalog” (page 82). Thomas also mentioned that “I have assigned a South American species to this name based on Dallas’ original description of a form with very elongate humeri”, however, he did not designate a neotype. In the identification key for the species of Podisus, Thomas uses the features “scent gland ruga curving, reaching two-thirds distance to pleural edge” to distinguish P.cornutus from other similar species. However, in our interpretation, neither these characteristics nor Dallas’ original description provides enough information to enable the undoubtful identification of P.cornutus. Thus, we propose treating Podisus cornutus as species inquirenda.