Dasyhelea calycata Remm

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 : 9-10

Dasyhelea calycata Remm

Dasyhelea calycata Remm, 1972: 74 (male, female; Russia: Buryatia, Tuva); Remm 1973a: 173 ( Mongolia); Przhiboro & Brodskaya 2006: 181 ( Ukraine: Crimea, breeding site – salt lakes).

Dasyhelea neobifurcata: Szadziewski 1983: 66 ( Poland) ; Chandler et al. 2008: 88 (male, Great Britain, breeding site – saline mud, saltmarsh). Nec D. neobifurcata Wirth, 1976 .

Dasyhelea bifurcata: Remm 1966: 60 ( Lithuania) ; Remm 1967: 17 ( Russia: North Ossetia); Remm & Zhogolev 1968: 832 ( Ukraine: Crimea); Remm 1969: 208 (male); Damian-Georgescu 1973: 451 (male, Romania); Remm 1973b: 355 ( Hungary); Havelka 1979: 65 ( Spain). Nec D. bifurcata Wirth, 1952 .

Dasyhelea flavoscutellata: Zilahi-Sebess 1940: 49 (male, female, syn.: = egens , = flaviscapula, =? alonensis , = halobia , = heracleae ; Hungary, Slovakia); Mayer 1959: 97 (male, Spain, breeding site – saline habitats). Nec D. flavoscutellata ( Zetterstedt, 1850) .

New country records. Bosnia & Herzegovina. Neum n. Mostar, 8 June 1974, at light, 1 male, leg. R. Szadziewski. Bulgaria. Burgas, saline habitats, 30 July 1976, 22 males, leg. R. Szadziewski.

Distribution. Great Britain, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Ukraine (Crimea), Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, Hungary, Russia (Buryatia, Tuva, North Ossetia), Mongolia.

Discussion. According to Wirth (1952) the holotype and some paratypes of D. bifurcata from California were deposited in the USNM. Unfortunately, a recent search did not reveal any type material in that collection (Pollie Rueda – pers. com.). Only two female paratypes from the CASC and other specimens from CNCI determined by A. Borkent as D. neobifurcata were available for our study. Males of D. neobifurcata differ from European specimens determined as belonging to this species in the shape of the caudomedian projection on the left paramere which is more slender and also more heavily sclerotized. In our opinion, all records of D. neobifurcata in Europe most likely refer to D. calycata (type material of this species were not available in the TUZ, Jaan Luig – pers. com.). According to Remm’s original description, the caudomedian projection on the left paramere of D. calycata is broad and weakly sclerotized. This character is readily visible in all specimens of D. calycata that we examined from Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Poland, Spain, and Ukraine. It is worth noting here that the association of both sexes proposed by Remm for D. calycata seems to be incorrect. Males of D. calycata are typical members of the subgenus Pseudoculicoides Malloch with short mouthparts. However, its associated females have an elongated clypeus, a triangular subgenital plate without a lumen and long cerci which are not typical of this subgenus. We suspect that these females belong to another species, probably D. unguistyla Remm, 1972 .

Meridional Palaearctic faunal element. A halobiont. The records of D. calycata from Germany, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kamchatka by Remm (1988) are questionable because he did not provide locality data, and therefore, we have not included these countries in this section.