Ascodipteron megastigmatos Jobling, 1956

Hastriter, Michael W., 2007, A review of Ascodipterinae (Diptera: Streblidae) of the Oriental and Australasian regions with a description of three new species of Ascodipteron Adensamer and a key to the subfamily, Zootaxa 1636 (1), pp. 1-32 : 29

Ascodipteron megastigmatos Jobling, 1956

Ascodipteron megastigmatos Jobling. 1956: 377–384 ; Hutson and Oldroyd, 1980: 774; Maa, 1965a: 320; Maa, 1965b: 384; Theodor, 1968: 366. Nomen dubium.

Remarks. The holotype of A. megastigmatos could not be located in the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Geneva, Switzerland. Jobling described A. megastigmatos from a single specimen from Hipposideros caffer guineensis = H. ruber , Ivory Coast. Both Maa (1965a) and Theodor (1968) expressed doubts on the validity of this species suggesting that it was a possible synonym of A. jonesi whose primary type specimen was collected from Sierra Leone on H. abae . In addition, a large series of A. jonesi was collected from H. caffer from Ghana. The characters used by Jobling (1956) to distinguish A. jonesi and A. megastigmatos included the relative position of the post-gena and mesopleuron and the differing position of the humeral callus of each. These characters are variable from specimen to specimen within the same species and the former character is particularly subject to distortion in mounted material. Maa (1965a) never examined the holotype of either species, nor was the holotype of A. mesostigmatos ever examined by Theodor (1968). Since the holotype of A. mesostigmatos is missing and additional topotypic material is unavailable, this species is considered a nomen dubium.