Lucidota, AND

LUCIDOTA AND View in CoL PHOTINUS : LITTLE BY LITTLE

We suggest new combinations involving the genera Photinus and Lucidota , both from the tribe Photinini . North American species of Photinus have been the subject of solid revisionary taxonomic work ( Green, 1956), but the genus is still poorly known in South America. In contrast, Lucidota is known to be an ill-defined, artificial taxon, to a point where discriminating it from other genera in the same subtribe or even tribe is not straightforward ( McDermott, 1964). This is mainly because several unrelated taxa have in the past been lumped under Lucidota , including, for example, Dilychnia ( Gemminger, 1870; Olivier, 1899), leaving some species unplaced.

Our review found several cases of synonyms ( Gemminger & Harold, 1869; Olivier, 1899, 1907), homonymy ( Gemminger, 1870) and transfers ( Gemminger, 1870; Olivier, 1899) in the taxonomic history of Dilychnia . Although revising Photinus and Lucidota is beyond the scope of this work, we highlight that the nomenclatural acts and redefinition of Dilychnia proposed here, based on analytical and morphological evidence using type material, are important steps towards the revision of those genera and understanding the diversity of Neotropical lampyrids.