Eremotrichoma perspiciendum ( Becker, 1903 )

Dawah, Hassan A., Ahmad, Syed K., Abdullah, Mohammed A. & Zatwarnicki, Tadeusz, 2019, An overview of the Ephydridae (Diptera) of Saudi Arabia, Zootaxa 4711 (3), pp. 401-445 : 426

Eremotrichoma perspiciendum ( Becker, 1903)

Elephantinosoma perspiciendum Becker, 1903: 180 .

Allotrichoma perspiciendum: Cresson, 1929: 176 [generic combination]: Collin, 1949: 203–205 [discussion]; Mathis, 1986: 132–133 [revision].

Eremotrichoma perspiciendum: Mathis & Zatwarnicki, 1995: 157 [generic combination]; Dawah & Abdullah 2006: 389–390 [ Saudi Arabia]; Mathis et al. 2017: 715–717 [ United Arab Emirates]; El-Hawagry et al. 2019: 33 [ Saudi Arabia].

Specimens examined. 13 ♂, 4 ♀, Jazan, Water treatment, 7. ix. 2014, sweeping mangrove, H.A. Dawah ( CERS) ; 1 ♂, Jazan, Abu Aresh, Al-Mahdag Village , 4. iii. 2013, Malaise trap, H.A. Dawah ( CERS) ; 2 ♂, Asir, Maraba , 1–31. v. 2004, Malaise trap, H.A. Dawah ( NMWC) .

Other Saudi Arabian records: Asir Region: Maraba: 60 km S of Abha ( Dawah & Abdullah 2006) ; Riyadh Region: Rawdhat Khorim National Park ( El-Hawagry et al. 2019) .

Distribution. This species was previously recorded from Saudi Arabia by Dawah & Abdullah (2006) and El- Hawagry et al. (2019). The species was described from Egypt (Elephant Island on the river Nile; hence the name of the genus) and further recorded from the Afrotropical Region: Sudan and United Arab Emirates; Palaearctic Region: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. There are some specimens of E. perspiciendum in NMWC collected from Niger, Nigeria, Oman and Yemen.

Remarks. E. perspiciendum is quite distinct from E. chnumi Becker, 1903 , the type species of the genus, described in the same paper but was transferred to the genus Allotrichoma Becker, 1896 and later became the species upon which the subgenus Eremotrichoma Giordani Soika, 1956 was established. Through misidentification of E. perspiciendum by Cresson and others, the situation became very complicated but was clarified by Mathis & Deeming (1987).