Dasyhelea bifida Zilahi-Sebess

Dominiak, Patrycja & Szadziewski, Ryszard, 2010, Distribution and new synonymy in European biting midges of the genus Dasyhelea Kieffer (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), Zootaxa 2437, pp. 1-37 : 7

Dasyhelea bifida Zilahi-Sebess

Dasyhelea fascigera Kieffer var. bifida, Zilahi-Sebess 1936a: 44 (male, Hungary); Zilahi-Sebess 1940: 48 (male, Hungary).

Dasyhelea bifida: Remm 1967: 21 (male, Azerbaijan); Damian-Georgescu 1975: 97 (male, Romania); Navai 1994: 364 (male, Afghanistan); Yu et al. 2006: 237 (male, China); Dominiak et al. 2007a: 260 (male, Israel).

New country records. Poland. Krościenko on the river Dunajec, 12 August 1988, at light, 1 male, leg. C. Majkowska. Inowrocław Mątwy, Apiaceae , 19 August 2009, net, 4 males, leg. P. Dominiak. Ukraine. Crimea, Near Armians’k, at the freshwater lake, 46°10.897'N 33°31.924'E, 1 m BMSL, 25 May 2008, net, 6 males, leg. P. Dominiak.

Distribution. An arboreal Palaearctic faunal element reported from Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine (Crimea), Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Israel, China.

Discussion. In their taxonomic revision of the fasciigera species group, Borkent & Forster (1986) proposed to treat Dasyhelea bifida as a senior synonym of D. furva Remm, 1967 . Our examination of new materials from Europe revealed that they both represent valid, distinct species (see D. furva below). The specimens previously recorded from Poland ( Szadziewski 1991) actually belong to D. furva . The records from Moldova, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Middle Asia, Siberia ( Remm 1988) and Germany ( Havelka & Aguilar 1999) are questionable because they did not provide locality data, and therefore, we have not included these countries in this section.