On the inopportune neotype designation of Luciola lusitanica (Charpentier, 1825), and on the incorrect type species designation of Luciola.

In this paper I highlight how and why the neotype of Lampyris lusitanica Charpentier, 1825 (= Luciola lusitanica) is inopportune. Furthermore, I explain why Luciola lusitanica cannot be designated as the type species of Luciola as proposed by Ballantyne et al. (2025), and I explain the reasons, which were already clearly exposed in the literature. Therefore, I confirm, for the third time, that Luciola italica (Linnaeus, 1758) is the type species of the genus, which is also confirmed by the finding of a valid designation in Mikšić & Mikšić (1966), which I report here. I also provide a detailed rebuttal, step-by-step, to the comments made in Ballantyne et al. (2025).