Dolichopus cuniculus Van Duzee, 1921: 145

Runyon, Justin B., 2022, Nematode-induced demasculinization of Nearctic Dolichopodidae (Diptera) with five new synonyms, Zootaxa 5092 (5), pp. 545-558 : 555

Dolichopus cuniculus Van Duzee, 1921: 145 (= Dolichopus remotus Walker, 1849: 666 )

Potential infected species: possibly Dolichopus remotus .

Dolichopus cuniculus was described from one male collected on Grand Island , New York, USA. This male has a short, rather slender hypopygium and Van Duzee commented “The name was suggested by the small hypopygium which reminded me of a rabbit’s tail” (Van Duzee 1921: 146). The illustration of the apex of the abdomen and postabdomen ( Van Duzee et al. 1921, fig. 98) shows a small and improperly rotated hypopygium that is characteristic of nematode infection .

Parent (1934) synonymized D. cuniculus with D. remotus but gave no justification. It is possible that types of both species are demasculinized. Van Duzee noted the similarity of D. cuniculus to D. abbreviatus (see above) and the widespread species D. ramifer (Van Duzee 1921: 145) . Dolichopus ramifer is unlikely to be the host species since both sexes have a stump vein (lacking in D. cuniculus ) and shiny bluish frons (green in D. cuniculus ), characters not predicted to be affected by nematode infection. Dolichopus abbreviatus , on the other hand, could be synonymous with D. cuniculus .