Musca senegalensis, Macquart, 1843

Pont, Adrian C., 2012, Muscoidea (Fanniidae, Anthomyiidae, Muscidae) described by P. J. M. Macquart (Insecta, Diptera), Zoosystema 34 (1), pp. 39-111 : 90

senegalensis Macquart, 1843 , Musca

Musca senegalensis Macquart, 1843: 151 ( 1844: 308) . Lectotype ♂, “du Sénégal. Muséum.” ( Senegal), by present designation, in MNHN.

MATERIAL. — There is 1 ♂ syntype in MNHN, under no. 982 of the Macquart collection in MNHN. It has a white disc with the data “ Senegal / Guerin” ; an old hand-written tag “256.bis”; and Macquart’s label “ Musca / senegalensis.”. It is in poor condition: some mould; legs (except left foreleg), abdomen and left arista missing; head and thorax rubbed. I have labelled it and designate it herewith as lectotype.

CURRENT IDENTITY. — The name has been synonymized by previous authors with Musca domestica Linnaeus, 1758 (e.g., Patton 1922: 417; Hennig 1964a: 999; Pont 1980: 727), but the lectotype has not been re-examined until recently. It certainly belongs to Musca domestica s.l. as it has hairs present on the proepisternal depression. It has the anterior postsutural dorsocentral setae strongly developed, equal in length to the presutural dorsocentrals (i.e. much stronger than in subsp. calleva Walker, 1849 ); frons broad, at narrowest point almost twice as broad as width of postpedicel; parafacial silvery pruinose. As the abdomen is missing, it is not possible to determine if it belongs to subsp. curviforceps Saccà & Rivosecchi, 1956 , which is defined morphologically by the shape of the ♂ surstylus. In order to maintain the existing and universally-accepted nomenclature, the best course is to identify Musca senegalensis with subsp. domestica , which is not endemic to the Afrotropical region but which in the 19th century, as now, was constantly and inevitably introduced into coastal areas by European shipping but which was unable to maintain itself as a discrete subspecies in the face of competition from the indigenous tropical subsp. curviforceps (see Paterson 1964).