Stichopogon scaliger Loew

Abu El-Hassan, Gawhara M. M., Badrawy, Haitham B. M., Gad Allah, Sohair M., Soliman, Ahmed M., Salama, Mohamed S. & Mohammad, Salwa K., 2017, Review of robber flies of the genus Stichopogon Loew (Diptera: Asilidae: Stichopogoninae) from Egypt, Zootaxa 4242 (1), pp. 142-160 : 157

Stichopogon scaliger Loew

( Figs 13 , 14 D)

Stichopogon scaliger Loew, 1847: 501 ; Stichopogon congener Loew, 1856: 37 .

Type locality. Italy, “ Südlichen Russland ” [southern Russia] .

Diagnosis. Length: Body 5.5 mm, wing 3.2 mm. Resembles S. chrysostoma except for: setae on abdominal tergite l stronger, tufts of hairs on 8th sternite of female short and not touching in the middle; male genitalia with dististylus wider and less curved.

Local distribution. Western Desert.

Geographical distribution. Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Greece, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Turkey.

Specimens examined. Wadi El-Natroun, 11¯ 13.IV.2013 (2 ♀) (ASUC).

Remarks. This species is recorded from Egypt for the first time.

The character of the dististylus of the male in couplet 4 in the key was taken from Theodor (1980) as we do not have a male specimen of Stichopogon scaliger .

Engel (1924) identified this species among the Egyptian specimens sent to him by Efflatoun. In contrast, Efflatoun (1937) re-identified the species as S. chrysostoma (not scaliger ), based on an examination of 150 Egyptian specimens, including Engel's specimens, and after comparison with Hungarian specimens of S. scaliger . Also, following our own examination of the specimen which was collected from Ramleh, 17.IX.1921 (PPDD) and incorrectly identified by Engel as S. scaliger , it is clear that this specimen belongs to S. chrysostoma . Both Steyskal & El-Bialy (1967) and El-Hawagry (2011) erroneously included this species from the literature based on Engel (1924), we were recently successful in collecting two specimens of this species from Wadi El-Natroun (April 2013) and so this species is here considered as a new record for our fauna.

Figures

FIGURE 13 Stichopogon scaliger Loew, A, B (♀) body length = 5.5 mm.

FIGURE 14 A, B. Wings. of Stichopogon deserti, S. elegantulus; C, D Last abdominal segments in female Stichopogon chrysostoma, S. scaliger Loew respectivily.