Istocheta frontosa Rondani, 1859

Sforzi, Alessandra & Sommaggio, Daniele, 2021, Catalog of the Diptera types described by Camillo Rondani, Zootaxa 4989 (1), pp. 1-438 : 324

Istocheta frontosa Rondani, 1859

ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: 1859b: 157 (key, sub “ frontalis ”), 171 (description, sub frontosa ).

TYPE LOCALITY: “ in collibus sub-apenninis [sub-Apennine hills ( Italy)]” .

TYPE MATERIAL: 1 ♂, syntype (not a female as given in the description) (covered with mold, missing left fore-leg) ( MZUF: Box 12): Istocheta Rnd. / macrocheta Rnd. / 604.

CURRENT STATUS: junior synonym of Istocheta cinerea (Macquart, 1851) ( Herting & Dely-Draskovits 1993: 155, O’Hara et al. 2020: 231).

REMARKS: Rondani (1859b: 171) described Istocheta frontosa from just the female sex, without specifying the exact number of specimens, but giving a single measurement of length: “ Foeminas tantum speciei rarissimo lectas [Only females of the species rarely collected]”. Rondani (1859b) named this nominal species as “ frontalis ” (p. 157) in his key but as “ frontosa ” in both his description (p. 171) and index (p. 238). Acting as First Reviser, Herting (1984: 24) determined “ frontosa ” as the correct original spelling ( O’Hara et al. 2011: 101). Rondani (1865c: 211) changed Istocheta frontosa to Istocheta macrocheta in order to distinguish the former from Tachina frontosa Meigen, 1824 , which he considered as belonging to the genus Phorocera Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 . Herting (1969: 194) stated that “the type is a male (not a female as Rondani believed)”. We found a male syntype in this study.