Mallophora alecto Rondani, 1848

Sforzi, Alessandra & Sommaggio, Daniele, 2021, Catalog of the Diptera types described by Camillo Rondani, Zootaxa 4989 (1), pp. 1-438 : 55

Mallophora alecto Rondani, 1848

ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: 1848b: 94.

TYPE LOCALITY: “ Brasile [ Brazil]” ( Rondani 1848b: 63); [Belem (Pará), Brazil] ( Papavero 1973: 343). See Remarks.

TYPE MATERIAL: 1 ♀, syntype ( MZUN: Box Asilidei A 05, 05): Mallophora alecto Rnd. , Brasile / M. Zool. N° 11040 .

CURRENT STATUS: valid species ( Martin & Papavero 1970: 72); junior synonym of Mallophora robusta ( Wiedemann, 1828) ( Artigas & Angulo 1980: 97, Papavero 2009: 41).

REMARKS: Rondani (1848b: 94) described Mallophora alecto from just the female sex, without specifying the exact number of specimens, but giving a single measurement of length, from material collected in South America by V. Ghiliani and received from G. Mussino. Costa (1866: 36) listed a single MZUN specimen numbered “796”. Artigas & Angulo (1980: 98) reported the type of this nominal species as probably lost. We found one syntype in this study. The subsequent spelling “ aleto ” has been used ( Martin & Papavero 1970: 72, O’Hara et al. 2011: 206) but it is not in prevailing usage ( Williston 1891: 92, Kertész 1909a: 209, Hull 1962: 468, Artigas & Angulo 1980: 97, Papavero 2009: 41). Therefore, the original spelling “ alecto ” is to be used and “ aleto ” is an incorrect subsequent spelling. Although Rondani (1848b: 63) only gave the type locality as “ Brasile ”, Papavero (1973: 343) gave a more accurate type locality based on a note in Spinola (1853) that said all specimens collected by Ghiliani in 1846 were collected in Belem, Pará, Brazil.