Laparocerus piceus Boheman, 1834 ** Laparocerus piceus Boheman in Schönherr 1834, p 531. Type locality. Island of Madeira. Holotype: 1♀ much rubbed [Lusitania / Falderman]. NR (Coll. Schönherr), Stockholm. Remarks. The species was described by Boheman based on a single female labelled as from Lusitania (5 Portugal); however, Gyllenhall is often cited as author. I have seen specimens of L. azoricus Drouet labelled as L. piceus in several collections (Coll. Stierlin, Osella, Poncy, etc.). Furthermore, Marseul (1872, p 548) placed the species with a question-mark as synonym of L. vespertinus (Wollaston, 1854) and it is recorded identically in Winkler (1932, p 1448), even though L. piceus Boheman, 1834 would have priority over L. vespertinus (Wollaston, 1854), as posteriorly recognized by Schmitz (1898, p 154) in his list of Madeiran coleoptera. It has been registered in several catalogues (Jacquelin du Val 1855; Lacordaire 1863; Lona 1938, etc.) as from Portugal, and only Lundblad (1958, p 485) assumes that the locality label ‘‘Lusitania’’ must be an error as in the case of L. morio, equally described by Boheman on a specimen provided by Falderman. Consequently, I assume the island of Madeira as the locality where the type really originated. The holotype of L. piceus is kept in Stockholm. It is a rubbed female specimen that resembles L. noctivagans (Wollaston, 1854), but could equally be assigned to L. lauripotens (Wollaston, 1854). Females of this group of Laparocerus (L. vespertinus, included) are not always easy to separate. Therefore I propose to consider L. piceus, a nomen dubium.

Published as part of Machado, Antonio, 2006, The type material of the species of Laparocerus Schönherr, 1834 (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Entiminae), pp. 2001-2055 in Journal of Natural History 40 (35 - 37) on page 2032, DOI: 10.1080/00222930601046659, http://zenodo.org/record/5232123