Cephalodromia scutellaris (Bezzi), 1926

Greathead, David J. & Evenhuis, Neal L., 2004, New species of Bombylioidea in Mario Bezzi’s Unpublished Hungarian Museum Manuscript, Zootaxa 773, pp. 1-56 : 11-13

Cephalodromia scutellaris (Bezzi), 1926

( Fig. 5)

25. Cyrtosia scutellaris 2Ψ, South Africa (Gauteng): Pretoria, in floribus Sonchus arven­

sis. MS page 21.

Bezzi, 1926: 259 – included in a key to species of Cyrtosiinae [= Mythicomyiidae ] and a footnote ‘nouvelle espèce du Transvaal, dans la collection du Musée de Budapest’, validating the species and indicating type material.

Hesse, 1938: 971 – description as Ceratolaemus xanthogrammus Hesse, n. sp. SYN. NOV. Bowden, 1980: 383 – transferred to Cephalodromia .

Evenhuis, 1993: 99 – noted ‘holotype’ in HNHM probably destroyed.

Evenhuis, 2002: 21 – listed 1 syntype in HNHM destroyed; 1 syntype in MSNM. Types: Type series consists of two syntypes: one syntype in HNHM was destroyed in 1956; one female specimen in MSNM: ‘Transvaal, Pretoria, caught sucking flower of Sonchus arvensis ’ is here selected lectotype female ( Fig. 5).

Remarks: This species was not treated in Hesse (1956, 1967), probably because the only mention of it previous to Hesse (and the only publication in which the name was validated) was in a work whose title was additions to the bombyliid fauna of Egypt. Thus, Hesse probably would not have thought to look there for any South African species.

Bezzi’s description in the manuscript is reproduced here (translated from the Latin with addition or clarifications in square brackets):

“Lengths: body 2 mm. Wing 2.3 mm.

Head black, pyriform, similar in appearance to nitens , and antennae and prothorax also similar in form. Thorax black, subshining, with short tiny pale hairs; spots yellowish as in nitens , yellow spot above humeral callus; flat, wide, triangular spot on notopleuron; scutellum yellow laterally [in the lectotype it is completely yellow], slightly shining, bare. Haltere apex clavate, white, with brownish spot dorsally. Squama brownish, bare. Mesoscutum black, shining. Abdomen cylindrical, thick, obtuse, with thin white tiny hairs, shining black; posterior margins of tergites with yellow; venter yellow. Legs long, thin, with coxae all pale yellow; tarsi and tibiae somewhat brownish, bare; claws and pulvilli minute; wing long, base narrowed, alula reduced, hyaline, iridescent; veins brown, similar to that in nitens ; marginal cell exceedingly narrow and apical vein of anal cell and false vein pressed together below.”

Using Hesse’s (1967) key to Ceratolaemus (now Cephalodromia ), the female lectotype of scutellaris in MSNM runs to C. xanthogramma . A comparison of scutellaris with specimens of xanthogramma and the characters in the original description show the two to be conspecific. Thus, C. xanthogramma is here treated as a SYN. NOV. of C. scutellaris .