Rhodopaea Explained

Rhodopaea (or Gruevia) is a genus of leaf beetles in the subfamily Eumolpinae.^[1] It originally contained only one species, Rhodopaea angelovi, which is paleoendemic to the western Rhodopes of Bulgaria.^[2] In 2019, a second species, Rhodopaea heinzi, was described from northwestern Anatolia in Turkey.^[3]

Taxonomy

The genus Rhodopaea and the type species, R. angelovi, were originally described by Bulgarian entomologists Blagoy Gruev and Vassil Tomov in 1968. In 1974, Warchałowski suggested the generic name Gruevia, believing the name Rhodopaea to be preoccupied by a butterfly genus of the same name described by Achille Guenée in 1845. The name of the type species would therefore be Gruevia angelovi. However, it turned out the genus described by Guenée was actually called Rhodophaea, which was misspelled as Rhodopaea by Bytinski-Salz in 1938. Therefore, Rhodopaea angelovi remains the valid name for the type species.^[4]

Species

• Rhodopaea angelovi Gruev & Tomov, 1968
• Rhodopaea heinzi Kippenberg, 2019^[3]

Notes and References

1. Book: Moseyko. A. G.. Sprecher-Uebersax. E.. 2010. Eumolpinae. https://books.google.com/books?id=qt8zDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA620. Löbl. I.. Smetana. A.. Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera. Volume 6. Chrysomeloidea. Stenstrup, Denmark. Apollo Books. 619–643. 978-87-88757-84-2.
2. Book: Gruev. B.. Tomov. V.. 2007. Zoocartographia Bulcanica. Volume 3. Distributional Atlas & Catalogue of the Leaf Beetles of Bulgaria: (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae).. Pensoft Publishers. Sofia–Moscow. 978-95-46422-71-2.
3. Horst. Kippenberg. 2019. Rhodopaea heinzi sp.n. aus Anatolien (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Eumolpinae). Koleopterologische Rundschau. 89. 321–324.
4. Web site: Бечев. Димитър. Основни принципи на биологическата систематика. Електронно издание, версия 1.3. 2019-01-06. Bulgarian. Basic principles of biological systematics. Electronic edition, version 1.3. 13. 8 September 2019.