Notolomatia nigrescens (Ricardo, 1901)

Greathead, David J. & Evenhuis, Neal L., 2004, New species of Bombylioidea in Mario Bezzi’s Unpublished Hungarian Museum Manuscript, Zootaxa 773, pp. 1-56 : 29

Notolomatia nigrescens (Ricardo, 1901)

47. Lomatia pleuralis 1ɗ South Africa (Northern Cape): Three Sisters, V. Snooke, i.1911 (Janse). MS page 59.

Bezzi, 1924: 143 – key only.

Evenhuis & Greathead, 1999: 274 – indicated that the location of type material was unknown. Types: The only known syntype of N. pleuralis is the male in HNHM (destroyed in 1956).

Remarks: Notolomatia pleuralis does not appear in Hesse (1956) and there are no specimens in Bezzi’s collection in MSNM so that the only published information on this species is the key in Bezzi (1924). The characters in the key and the manuscript description indicate that it is close to N. nigrescens (Ricardo) and N. tenera (Loew) , placing it in Bezzi’s (1924) Group III. Although he compared N. pleuralis with N. nigrescens in his Hungarian manuscript, he omitted N. nigrescens from his key in Bezzi (1924). The species included in this group are small, short­bodied, largely black or brown species with white tufts at the sides of the anterior abdominal segments, hyaline or spotted wings, and lacking a distinct costal comb. These species fall into Lomatia Section 3 of Hesse (1956: 285–309), but Hesse placed N. tenera and a new species, N. melanthia in Section 2 (Hesse, 1956: 259– 285) although his key places them among the species of Section 3! Notolomatia pleuralis does not accord completely with any of the species in Hesse’s key or with his descriptions. However, it is closest to N. melanthia from which it differs in having a tuft of white hairs on the underside of the scape as does N. nigrescens and not black hairs as in N. melanthia . However, N. nigrescens has tufts of light brownish hair on the thoracic pleura while N. melanthia and N. pleuralis have only black. Notolomatia melanthia was described from Zimbabwe and N. nigrescens from Pretoria (Gauteng). Hesse also described N. nigrescens var. aterrima with entirely black­haired pleurae and N. nigrescens var. bulawayoensis with more extensive white hair on the head and pale hair on the thorax. Given the apparent variability of N. nigrescens it is here concluded that N. pleuralis SYN. NOV. is a synonym.