Megalestes lieftincki Lahiri, 1979

Yu, Xin & Xue, Junli, 2020, A review of the damselfly genus Megalestes Selys, 1862 (Insecta: Odonata Zygoptera: Synlestidae) using integrative taxonomic methods, Zootaxa 4851 (2), pp. 245-270 : 261

Megalestes lieftincki Lahiri, 1979

Megalestes lieftincki Lahiri, 1979: 122–125 , figs. 1–4 [Tahlia, Arunachal Pradesh, India]; Asahina 1985b: 11–12, figs. 27–31 [Salari, Kameng, Assam, India].

We did not examine any specimens of this species, since they are difficult to access. According to the figures in the original description in Lahiri (1979), this species resembles M. heros . Asahina (1985b) put character figures of M. lieftincki together with M. heros but provided no figure of the ligula for heros . Asahina (1985b) did not provide a key, and some emphasized characters, such as “disk-shaped” basal tooth of cerci with “bush of hairs” on the apex, actually exist in both species. Only one distinct character separates M. lieftincki from M. heros if the drawings in Lahiri (1979) and Asahina (1985b) are credible, that is, the dorsal side of S10 is flat (rare in Megalestes ) in M. lieftincki but swelling in M. heros . M egalestes heros is limited to the Fujian and Zhejiang provinces of China which is about 2000 km away from the type locality of M. lieftincki . This makes it unlikely that M. lieftincki is conspecific with M. heros for which reason we regard it to be a good species. Nonetheless a more detailed description, if possible combined with genetic data, would be valuable.