Type specimens of beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera) at the museo entomológico Francisco Luís Gallego, Medellín, Colombia

Type specimens are the most scientifically valuable specimens of the natural history collections, and are very important to because they represent standards of reference that provide objectivity in scientific nomenclature (IZCN, 1999). In consideration of the recommendation 72F.4 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, which indicates that the type lists should be published, we provide a list of the species of Coleoptera with types housed in the Museo Entomologico Francisco Luis Gallego (MEFLG). The MEFLG collection originated in 1937 at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellin is the most important insect collection of the northeastern region of Colombia. This museum contains nearly 200,000 specimens of which about 50,000 represent the order Coleoptera, a majority of them are pinned adults and some are immature stages conserved in a liquid medium. The Coleoptera have been identified to subfamily and genus, and some to species level. Almost all of them were collected in Antioquia state, and others are from different localities in Colombia or are donations by foreign institutions. The entomological collection of MEFLG houses 80 type specimens of Coleoptera designated in taxonomic studies done by several researchers, especially by Clarence Johnson. The types listed herein belong to 19 species described by the following authors: Galileo & Martins (1991) (1), Gordon (1985) (2), Johnson (1973, 1974, 1983, 1990) (11), Kingsolver (1980) (1), Kingsolver & Johnson (1978) (2), and Martins & Galileo (1995, 1996) (2). The 80 type specimens are grouped in 19 species of 7 genera. We found 3 Holotypes, 76 Paratypes and 1 Allotype. They were collected in United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Puerto Rico and Colombia. We have listed holotypes, paratypes and allotypes, following the classification of Arnett, et al. (2000). Each entry includes: species name, bibliographic reference of the original publication, type material (i.e. Holotype (HT), Paratype (PT), Allotype (AT)), number of specimens, collection data and MEFLG catalog number