Cricotopus (Paratrichocladius) skirwithensis (Edwards, 1929)

Magoga, Giulia, Montagna, Matteo, Marziali, Laura, Rossaro, Bruno & Disaa, 2017, Revision of type and non-type material assigned to the genus Orthocladius by Goetghebuer (1940 - 1950), deposited in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (Diptera: Chironomidae), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae (Acta. Ent. Mus. Natl. Pragae) 57 (2), pp. 723-749 : 726

Cricotopus (Paratrichocladius) skirwithensis (Edwards, 1929)

Spaniotoma (Trichocladius) skirwithensis Edwards, 1929: 329 .

Orthocladius nigritus Goetghebuer, 1938: 459 not Orthocladius nigritus Malloch, 1915: 525 , syn. nov. (permanently invalid as junior primary homonym).

? Paratrichocladius nigritus (Goetghebuer) : LANGTON & VISSER (2003), pupal exuviae.

? Paratrichocladius nigritus (Goetghebuer) : LANGTON & PINDER (2007), adult male.

Paratrichocladius spiesi Ashe & O’Connor, 2012: 492 , syn. nov. (replacement name for Orthocladius nigritus Goetghebuer, 1938 ).

Type material examined. Orthocladius nigritus : HOLOTYPE: ♁ stored in isinglass, now mounted on slide, labelled

‘ Orthocladius nigritus n. sp. // type ♁ / M. Goetghebuer // locality Basse Autriche 1938, t 23°// R.I.SC.N.B. 18.073

/ Coll. et det. M. Goetghebuer’.

Comments. The specimen fits well with C. (P.) skirwithensis (Edwards, 1929) ; therefore, we propose to synonymize O. nigritus Goetghebuer, 1938 (not Malloch, 1915) with C. (P.) skirwithensis . Consequently, its replacement name P. spiesi Ashe & O’Connor, 2012 also becomes a junior synonym of C. (P.) skirwithensis . LANGTON & VISSER (2003) and LANGTON & PINDER (2007) separated the respective pupae and adult male of Paratrichocladius nigritus (Goetghebuer) and of P. skirwithensis (Edwards) . Unfortunately, the delimitation of species within the subgenus Paratrichocladius is still controversial, many species are probably present, but morphological evidence should be supported by DNA sequences, because of intraspecific variability ( CRANSTON & KROSCH 2015, MONTAGNA et al. 2016). The small differences described in pupal exuviae ( LANGTON & VISSER 2003) do not justify the separation of two species, and this is supported by the examination of the adult male of O. nigritus , which cannot be separated from C. (P.) skirwithensis . It is thus not recommended to increase species names and the present decision of synonymizing O. nigritus sensu Goetghebuer with C. (P.) skirwithensis results in the synonymy of P. spiesi with C. (P.) skirwithensis .