Chortophila tibialis, Macquart, 1843

Pont, Adrian C., 2012, Muscoidea (Fanniidae, Anthomyiidae, Muscidae) described by P. J. M. Macquart (Insecta, Diptera), Zoosystema 34 (1), pp. 39-111 : 92-93

tibialis Macquart, 1843 , Coenosia

Coenosia tibialis Macquart, 1843: 172 ( 1844: 329) . Syntype (s) ♀ (♀), “d’Alger. M. Guyon.” ( Algeria, Algiers), not in MNHN or MHNL, and presumed destroyed.

MATERIAL. — Described from an unspecified number of ♀♀ collected by Guyon. What may have been this species was recorded by Macquart (1850c: 536) as present in the MHNL collection from “Gallia”. No syntypes have been located, even in Macquart’s own collection ( MHNL) which contains other material collected by Guyon. Under no. 243 of the Macquart collection in MNHN, there is a label for this species but no material. However, this box contains the Lucas Algeria collection, and Macquart (1849: 493) wrote that this species was not collected by Lucas on his expedition.

In the miscellaneous Macquart material in MNHN, I found a series of four specimens of tibialis : the first is labelled by Macquart “346.” and “ Coenosia / tibialis”, and three of them have a white disc with the accession no. 2798.34. This refers to a collection from Marseilles (southern France) made by Salzmann, and so these cannot be syntypes. These three specimens consist of 2 ♂♂ and 1 ♀ of Fucellia tergina (Zetterstedt, 1845) (Anthomyiidae) . The fourth specimen is without labels, and lacks abdomen and posterior two pairs of legs.

CURRENT IDENTITY. — Both Bezzi & Stein (1907: 743) and Hennig (1962a: 619) included C. tibialis as an unrecognized species of Coenosia Meigen, 1826 . Only a few species of this genus are known from North Africa, and C. tibialis differs from most of them (e.g., C.strigipes Stein, 1916 , C. attenuata Stein, 1903 , C. humilis Meigen, 1826 , C. tigrina (Fabricius, 1775)) by the description of “palpes fauves” and “front […] antérieurement testacé”. This description in fact fits Coenosia testacea (Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830) extremely well, a species that occurs rarely in the cooler moister areas of the North African mountains such as the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains, where I collected it in 1963, and C. tibialis has been synonymized with C. testacea ( Pont 1986b: 212) . The fourth MNHN specimen mentioned above appears to be a ♀ of Coenosia testacea : it has postpedicel rounded at tip, one proepisternal seta, lower calypter well developed, fore coxa and forefemur largely dark.