Contia michoacanensis

Contia michoacanensis Dugès, 1885

Dugès’ (1885) description is based on one specimen from Michoacán that was not present at the MADUG when Smith & Necker (1943) published their account of the types. However, they described and illustrated a specimen from Guerrero present in the collection when they visited it, but decided not to designate it as a neotype, since there were discrepancies in scale counts; today the specimen described by Smith & Necker is no longer at the MADUG either. The type is definitively lost. To satisfy the criterion of availability, according to article 5.1.1 of the ICZN (1999), the name should be credited to Dugès, since Cope gives the explicit credit at the beginning and at the end to Dugès manuscript, also it is important to mention that Cope had no specimens upon which to base his description, since the ANSP neither the USNM do not have in their holdings a specimen of this taxon (Cochran 1961; Malnate 1971).

Current valid name: Sonora michoacanensis (Dugès in Cope, 1885).