What's up DECEMBER?

Mmm, today the department is going to have a christmas lunch at Tyrol!!! I've been looking forward to this event for a long time!

Otherwise I'm taking SEM-pics and checking up species names that are a bit troublesome. Like Meteorus rufus, Meteorus unicolor, Meteorus ruficeps, Meteorus pallidus etc. I'm not so sure how to behave concerning changing names, handling nomen oblitum's and so on.

Have to ask my senior colleagues how to do.

This M. rufus by DeGeer for instance - the specimen is lost and Huddleston (1981) put it as nomen oblitum. We have the DeGeer collection at my museum so it was easy to check. There is no pin hole either so the specimen must have been lost before the relocation of the collection into other drawers. I even checked Paykull's collection since I have been told that he had an interest in "borrowing" interesting specimens from others.

Later checklists has put M. rufus as a syn. to M. unicolor, the poor description fits OK: red with very long antennae and ovipositor as long as metasoma. The antennal length fits very well along with the length of the ovipositor.

But! I haven't seen any specimen from Sweden of this M. unicolor and DeGeer collected his specimen in Sweden (i think? note to check!).

Anyway, to make a neotype I have to find a M. unicolor from at least Sweden, better with a locality closer to DeGeers original locality.

As I understand there is no good in having a nomen oblitum hanging around...?

So I'd better make that phone call to K. J. Hedqvist!! He ought to have a M. unicolor??