
RECLASSIFICATION OF SUBFAMILY AGRYPNINAE 9 
EVE E-MATERETAL AND THE DESIGNATION OF LECTOTYPES 
Until comparatively recently it was not generally accepted practice amongst 
workers on the Elateridae, when they described a new species, to designate a single 
specimen as the holotype. Many early writers did not even record the number 
of specimens they had before them at the time of the description or to whom they 
belonged or where they were preserved. The majority did no more than place 
a determination label on one or more specimens. Sometimes they included the 
word ‘type’ on the label, but no worker appears to have been consistent in his 
actions. 
Many subsequent workers and museum curators have accepted these specimens 
with the describer’s determination label (either with or without the word ‘type’) 
as holotypes and very often affixed distinctive type-labels (referred to as ‘curatorial 
labels’ in the present work) to them. 
While the acceptance of these ‘types by tradition’ may appear to be perfectly 
satisfactory, in the majority of cases it can also create considerable difficulties. 
These arise mainly because in the past the word ‘type’ did not have the same 
meaning as it does at the present time. It was often used by workers to indicate 
that, in their opinion, a particular specimen was a typical example of a species. 
As a result several specimens, sometimes belonging to different species or even 
different genera and preserved in different collections, have been labelled and 
treated as holotypes. 
In order to overcome these difficulties Article 73 of the International Code of 
Zoological Nomenclature has been strictly observed. In the absence of a definite 
statement by the author that the description of a new species is based on a single 
specimen or that a particular specimen is the type (or some similar unambiguous 
expression) it has been assumed that the description is based on a syntype series 
and that a lectotype designation is required. 
In this work lectotypes have been designated for those species for which it has 
been possible to locate and assemble all the known extant specimens of the original 
series or at least the greater part of it. Wherever possible the specimen marked 
‘type’ by the describer, or that traditionally regarded as the type, whether so 
labelled or not, has been designated as the lectotype. 
Where a reviser has stated that a particular specimen is the type, when it is 
clear that the original description is based on more than one specimen (e.g. Van 
Zwaluwenburg, 1959 : 354, Lacon variolus Candéze [=Agrvypnus, see p. 228] described 
from an unrecorded, but large, number of specimens) this statement has been 
accepted as a valid lectotype designation unless there is sufficient evidence that 
the description was based on another specimen or the specimen is unsuitable for 
some other reason (e.g. badly damaged or the genitalia lost). 
It has been assumed, unless the author states that the material on which the 
description is based is the property of some other individual or institution, or is 
part of a collection made by travellers or exploring parties and subsequently 
acquired by a collector or institution, that the type-material was in the describer’s 
own collection. Syntype material found in other collections is assumed to have 
been acquired by the new owner as a gift or by exchange or purchase. Short 
