Wiedemannia rhynchops, Nowicki

Wagner, Rüdiger, Plant, Adrian, Ivković, Marija & Gattolliat, Jean-Luc, 2022, New synonyms and new species of European aquatic dance flies (Diptera, Empididae), Zootaxa 5222 (5), pp. 427-442 : 433

The Wiedemannia rhynchops group

The publication ‘Revision des Empididae Hemerodromiinae de France, d’Espagne et d’Afrique du Nord’ ( Vaillant 1965) created numerous nomenclatural problems due to errors in the attribution of text and figures, and figures with figure captions in the Wiedemannia rhynchops -group.

The species-group is well characterized by a roundish black pterostigma and an L-shaped clasping cercus in males. The shape of the clasping cercus is the ultimate character for morphological species distinction. For decades, it was difficult to assign the correct name to species in this group because the original descriptions were often insufficient, particularly concerning the terminalia. Collin (1961) distinguished a British and a continental form or subspecies of Wiedemannia rhynchops ; he named the British specimens as W. rhynchops insularis and another form from the West Alps as W. rhynchops debili s. However, Vaillant (1953) had recognized W. rhynchops debilis under the name W. alpina , but the name ‘ alpina ’ was pre-occupied by Wiedemannia alpina ( Engel, 1918) . Finally, a new name ( W. brevilamellata ) was given to that species ( Wagner 1985). Wiedemannia rhynchops Nowicki was finally characterized by Niesiołowski based on Nowicki’s type material; further he raised W. insularis Collin, 1961 to species level ( Niesiołowski 1992).