Subgenus Oecacta Poey, 1853

Oecacta Poey, 1853; type species Culicoides furens (Poey, 1853) .

Diplosella Kieffer, 1921; type species Culicoides sergenti Kieffer, 1921; Szadziewski 1984: 172 (redescription of type species from Algeria, synonymy with Oecacta).

Diagnosis. Male gonocoxite with foot-shaped ventral apodeme, parameres separate, with strongly bent apical part, often bearing spines or hairs, apicolateral processes of tergite 9 short to moderately long, pointed (Fig. 4 a–c). Females with two functional strongly sclerotized seminal capsules, wings with or without pattern, distribution of sensilla coeloconica variable, usually present on proximal and distal flagellomeres.

Discussion. With respect to the term “foot-shaped”, there are some discrepancies scattered around the literature that require clarification to avoid further confusion. For instance, the foot-shaped ventral roots are in fact absent in the male of C. minutissimus (Zetterstedt, 1855) (present examination), although this character was illustrated by Glukhova (1989, 2005). At the same time, C. pallidus Khalaf, 1957 (absent in Europe) does indeed possess this feature and should be ascribed to Oecacta s. s. This species was erroneously placed by the same author (loc. cit.) within the subgenus Wirthomyia . Another case, stated by Boorman (1974), is that the ventral apodemes of C. (Pontoculicoides) saevus Kieffer, 1922 bear the same “foot-shaped” structure. Actually, the ventral branch in C. saevus has no caudal prolongation, but is simply forked (Fig. 4 d). In C. tauricus Gutsevich, 1959, another species of the subgenus, this apodeme is simple (Fig. 4 e).

C. albicans (Winnertz, 1852)

C. azerbajdzhanicus Dzhafarov, 1962 C. brunnicans Edwards, 1939

C. clintoni Boorman, 1984

C. corsicus Kremer, Leberre & Beaucournu-Saguez, 1971 C. longipennis Khalaf, 1957

C. marcleti Callot, Kremer & Baset, 1968 C. sahariensis Kieffer, 1923

C. santonicus Callot, Kremer, Rault & Bach, 1966 C. semimaculatus Clastrier, 1958 C. sergenti Kieffer, 1921

C. truncorum Edwards, 1939

C. vexans (Staeger, 1839)

C. yemenensis Boorman, 1989