On the type locality of Fornasinius fornasini Bertoloni, 1853 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae, Cetoniinae)

Abstract

The Goliath beetles are large and iconic Cetoniinae (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), comprising a small number of closely related genera broadly distributed across sub-Saharan Africa. The genus Fornasinius was erected in 1853 by Giuseppe Bertoloni to receive a new species collected by Carlo Antonio Fornasini, reportedly in Inhambane, on the southern coast of Mozambique. However, the type locality of Fornasinius fornasini Bertoloni, “Magnárra river”, has long remained untraceable, and its traditional association with Inhambane is inconsistent with modern distributional data, which indicate that the species occurs in north-central Mozambique and southern Tanzania. Here, we integrate historical cartography, archival sources, linguistic evidence, and biogeography to reassess the identity of “Magnárra”. The available evidence indicates that this name most likely corresponds to “Mangara” or “Mangarra”, a now-vanished locality situated along the Mutu canal and the Quilimane (Cuacua) River in the Zambezi delta, near its confluence with the main Zambezi system in east-central Mozambique.