Labus floricola de Saussure 1890

Labus floricola de Saussure, 1890 nomen dubium Labus floricola de Saussure, 1890: 151, pl. XXII fig. 3, ♀ [♂]—“ Madagascar: Antananarivo ” (type lost?). Notes. de Saussure (1890) described Labus floricola based on a single female specimen collected by Franz Sikora near Antananarivo and subsequently reported further specimens and described the male (de Saussure 1900). A search of the MNHN collections by Quentin Rome resulted in a single male specimen (erroneously labelled as female), collected by Sikora and bearing an identification label reading “ floricola Sauss. ”. The identification label is in de Saussure’s handwriting, but the specimen is unlikely to be the holotype for three reasons: 1) the labels lack any reference to Antananarivo, cited as the collection locality by de Saussure (1890), and report a generic “ Madagascar ”; 2) the identification label is not in the usual format used by de Saussure to indicate type specimens in which he gave the genus, species, sex of the specimen and the abbreviation “Sss.”; 3) the specimen differs in several pattern aspects from the original description and illustration. Given these inconsistencies, it is unlikely that the specimen found is the holotype of Labus floricola, while it is likely to be one of the specimens examined subsequently and published in 1900 (de Saussure 1900: 235). Although it is certain that Labus floricola should be ascribed to the genus Cyrteumenes, in the absence of the holotype it is not possible to associate this name with certainty to one of the currently known species, since the description provided by de Saussure (1890) is applicable to at least three of them, and given the homogeneity of the species in the genus Cyrteumenes it is not possible to deduce the identity of Labus floricola on the basis of the non-type specimen found in MNHN, which instead coincides with Cyrteumenes mochii. Given these premises, the taxon Labus floricola is considered a nomen dubium to guarantee taxonomic stability within the genus Cyrteumenes.