RECLASSIFICATION OF SUBFAMILY AGRYPNINAE 135 
Lacon caliginosus (Boisduval) Germar, 1840 : 261. 
Lacon caliginosus (Guérin); Neboiss, 1956 : 5. 
This is the species which all workers, including Neboiss (1956 : 5), author of the 
most recent catalogue of Australian Elateridae, have credited to Guérin, generally 
with the date 1832. 
The date 1832 for the ‘Voyage autour du Monde...sur la Corvette... La 
Coquille pendent les années 1822, 1823, 1824 et 1825’, volume 2, part 2, in which a 
description of Adelocera caliginosa Guérin appears on page 68, was given by Hagen 
(1863 : 310) and accepted by many subsequent bibliographers. However, according 
to Kirkaldy (1902 : 317) Hagen did not see this work, which though dated 1830 
on the title page, bears the date 1838 at the end of the Avant-propos (p. xii) and 
contains references in the text to works published after 1832 (Bequaert, 1926 : 186). 
There can be no doubt that volume 2, part 2 of the text was published in 1838. 
The plates illustrating the insects described in the text were published between 
May 1830 and December 1831 (Guérin, 1838 : 271, Sherborne and Woodward, 
1906 : 338). Plate 2 was published on 25th November, 1830. 
The ready acceptance of Hagen’s dating of Guérin’s work was probably due 
to the fact that Boisduval (1835) gives references not only to the plates illustrating 
the voyage of the Coquille (published 1830-31, see above) but also to the text. 
For example on page 115 under Lyctus parallelus which is not illustrated by Guérin, 
Boisduval refers to Guerin, Voy. de la Coquille, Zool. p. 72, the page on which the 
description appeared in 1838. According to Sherborn and Woodward (1906 : 336) 
this ‘is accounted for by the new widely recognized fact that the contemporary 
writers, working on the different French Voyages, then in course of compilation, 
often exchanged the proofs of their several works’. Boisduval, probably included 
Guérin’s species because it was his intention (1835 : iii) to furnish his reader with 
‘un espéce de faune entomologique de l’Oceanie’. 
Adelocera caliginosa Boisduval. The description is presumably based on material 
collected at ‘Hobart Town et a la terre de van Diemen [TASMANIA] in the course of 
a voyage around the world by the Astrolabe under the command of J. Dumont 
D’Urville. This collection should be in the MNHN, Paris (Boisduval, 1832 : 11, 
Horn & Kahle, 1935 : 63) but the most careful searches have failed to discover 
the material. 
The fact that Boisduval refers to Guérin, Voy. de la Coquille, pl. ii, fig. 7 suggests 
that he believed that his Tasmanian caliginosus was identical with the Australian 
species depicted by Guérin, 1830 (with the name grisea, subsequently changed to 
caliginosa, see below). Since the species at present known as Lacon caliginosus 
(Guérin) is one of the few species which is fairly common in S.E. Australia and 
Tasmania, I suggest that a neotype of Adelocera caliginosa Boisduval be selected 
when suitable Tasmanian material belonging to the species at present known as 
Lacon caliginosus (Guérin) is found in the MNHN, Paris. 
Elater caliginosus Boisduval. LECTOTYPE (present designation). AUSTRALIA: 
2, Dej. Nov. Holl. [Janson]; Agrypnus caliginosus Dej. Cat. ex. coll. Dejean [ Janson]; 
Lacon caliginosus Cand. [Janson] Guer. [Gahan]; Janson coll. 1903 : 1330 (BMNH). 
