Grichanov,
I.Ya.
Last updated: 23 August 2003
Afrotropical Dolichopodinae
(Diptera: Dolichopodidae)
Grichanov,I.Ya.
All-Russian Institute
of Plant Protection, St.Petersburg-Pushkin, 196608, Russia
The Afrotropical
species of Dolichopodinae are poorly known
and have not previously been revised. The last catalogue of Afrotropical Dolichopodinae
(Dyte and Smith, 1980) listed 101 species belonging to 9 genera. The
author has recently revised the subfamily (Grichanov, in press).
He has described 86 new species from the Afrotropical Region, placing in
synonymy 18 known names. Two generic names have been also synonymized.
Holotypes of 38 and paratypes of 6 more old species have been examined.
A record of an undescribed species of the genus Hypophyllus
from "Southern Arabia"
by Dyte and Smith (1980) belongs probably to Hercostomus scotti
Grichanov. All catalogued species of the genus Dolichopus are excluded
here from the genus or from the fauna of Afrotropics, although several
more species of the genus and one species of Ludovicius are recorded
for the region. A revised catalogue and keys to all Afrotropical dolichopodine
species are also prepared.Now
8 genera and 163 Afrotropical species of Dolichopodinae
are known from the Region. Paracleius Bigot (including Pelastoneurus
Loew and Paraclius Coquillet) and
Tachytrechus
are almost cosmopolitan genera. Dolichopus and
Hercostomus
are mostly Holarctic genera,
Polymedon is a Pantropical
genus; Lichtwardtia is a Paleotropical
genus, Argyrochlamys
seems to be the same, associating with crabholes
along the seacoasts of Indian
Ocean
and southern Atlantics. The numbers of Afrotropical species belonging to dolichopodine
genera are as follows: Paracleius (73), Hercostomus (47),
Tachytrechus
(16),
Lichtwardtia
(16),
Dolichopus (4),
Argyrochlamys (3),
Polymedon (3) and
Ludovicius (1).The
well-known fauna of Congo
(Kinshasa)
comprises 68 species; South
Africa
numbers 30, Tanzania
22, Kenya
18, Ivory
Coast
18, Uganda
17, Cameroon
16, Nigeria
13, Malawi
9, Angola
8 and Namibia
7. Only 7 species were recorded from Madagascar,
3 from the Seychelles
and 2 from Mauritius.
The most interesting distribution patterns of species are as follows: Argyrochlamys impudicus Lamb
- Seychelles, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Chagos Archipelago; Dolichopus festivus
Haliday - Europe, Ivory Coast; D. flavocrinitus
Becker - Egypt, Turkmenistan, Senegal; D.sabinus
Haliday - Europe, Tanzania. Paracleius emasculatus
Parent - Congo (Kinshasa), Ivory Coast, St. Helena; Tachytrechus tessellatus
Macquart – Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde Is., Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa),
Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, Aldabra, Ethiopia, South Africa, Swaziland, Malawi,
Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Socotra;
Egypt, Israel; Oriental Region, New Caledonia.
Key
words: Diptera,
Dolichopodidae, Dolichopodinae, Tropical
Africa.