Notes on Hybobata

Hybobata Enderlein 1922 gen. restit.

Hybobata Enderlein 1922: 196 . Type species Calobata triannulata Macquart 1844 by original designation. Hybobata Enderlein; Verbeke 1956

Mimegralla Rondani in part, Hennig 1935, Steyskal 1980, Barraclough 1991. Cylosphen Frey 1929; Verbeke 1951.

Enderlein named the genus Hybobata in 1922 to include the type species, Calobata triannulata Macquart from Madagascar, and two West African species ( H. tessmanni, H. gibbifera) that he described in the same paper. Frey described another African Hybobata species, H. gowgyi, from Uganda, in 1929. Hennig (1935) treated Hybobata as a junior synonym of Mimegralla but Verbeke (1951) treated Hybobata as a synonym of Cyclosphen, later (1956) moving the Afrotropical species previously treated as Cyclosphen into Hybobata and describing two further African species ( H. maynei, H. basilewskyi) as Hybobata . Steyskal (1980) followed Hennig (1935) in treating African Hybobata and Cyclosphen as Mimegralla in the Catalog of Afrotropical Diptera, but this was not justified. The type species of Cyclosphen and Mimegralla are both from Southeast Asia, and differ widely from the African " Mimegralla " sensu Steyskal. The African species form a distinct clade of relatively robust species with a characteristic short, curved basal distiphallus that contrasts with the elongate, straight basal distiphallus of the Southeast Asian species so far examined (but " Mimegralla " needs to be revised and remains poorly defined). Hybobata is the oldest name for the African clade, and is thus used here.