Diopsis atricapilla Guérin-Méneville, 1835

Feijen, Hans R. & Feijen, Cobi, 2012, A new species of Diopsis L. (Diptera: Diopsidae) from South Africa and Swaziland, and brief review of African species with a large apical wing spot, African Invertebrates 53 (1), pp. 125-125 : 140

Diopsis atricapilla Guérin-Méneville, 1835

Diopsis atricapillus: Guérin-Méneville 1835 : pl. 103, fig. 9; 1844: 554 (Type locality: Senegal); Westwood 1837 b: 547; Eggers 1925: 484, 486, 489; Steyskal 1972: 7; Feijen 1978: 7.

Diopsis atricapilla: Cogan & Shillito 1980: 586 .

Diopsis fumipennis Westwood, 1837 a: 302 (Type locality:? Senegal). Syn. n.

Distribution: Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Togo and Uganda.

Notes: The name of the species became available as D. atricapillus in a plate dated 1835, while the description followed in 1844 (see Evenhuis 1997). The type locality was not cited in 1835, but was given later as “ Senegal ” (Guérin-Méneville 1844). The original descriptions provide no information to separate D. fumipennis from D. atricapilla . Study of a large series of specimens from Senegal indicates that only one species from the D. atricapilla -group occurs in that country that fits the original descriptions. Diopsis atricapilla has a glossy scutum with some pruinosity in the anteromedial point, pruinosity before the intrascutal sutures and pruinosity anteriorly of the scutellum. Spermathecae bell-shaped and surstyli strongly broadening apically, clothed in setulae, but lacking microtrichia. Feijen & Feijen (2009) mentioned a cross-like pruinosity pattern on the thorax for D. fumipennis , but that is incorrect.