Mesophylax aspersus Rambur 1842

Bemmoussat-Dekkak, Soumya, Abdellaoui-Hassaine, Karima, Sartori, Michel & Zamora-Muñoz, Carmen, 2021, Contribution to knowledge of the Trichoptera of northwestern Algeria: New species records for the Algerian fauna and taxonomic remarks for the Maghreb fauna, Zootaxa 5068 (2), pp. 186-210 : 196-199

Mesophylax aspersus Rambur 1842

Material examined. Chouly Beni Ghazli ( CH 0): 17 L, 17.iv.2014 ; 37 L, 14.iii.2014; 40 L, 04.i.2015; 25 L, 14.iii.215; 21 L, 11.iv.2014; 18 L, 17.iii.2017; 32 L, 16.ii.2019. Chouly wadi Yebder ( CH 1): 14 L, 17.iv.2014 ; 32 L, 04.i.2015; 45 L, 17.iii.2017. Same wadi Ouled Sid El Hadj ( CH 2): 22 L, 11.iv.2015 . Isser wadi ( IOM): 2 L, 17.iii.2017 . Khemis wadi (KH1): 54 L, 12.i.2014 ; 22 L, 14.iii.2014; 14 L, 17.i.2017; 10 L, 16.ii.2015; 28 L, 8.iii.2018. Chouly Wadi ( CH 0): 4 ♂, 14.iii.2014 ; 24 ♀, 14.iii.2014 ; 2 ♂, 17.iii.2017; 4 ♂, 8.iv.2017. Wadi Yebder ( CH 1): 7 ♂, 11.iv.2014 . Adults reared in the laboratory: 11 ♂: 6, larvae collected 20.iv.2014 ; 5, larvae collected 25.v.2015.

Distribution. The range of this species is wide throughout the Mediterranean Basin, reaching the Canary Islands (Morse 2020, referring to subspecies Mesophylax aspersus canariensis McLachlan 1882 ), and including the Maghreb ( Dambri et al. 2020; Hajji et al. 2013; Samraoui et al. 2020; Tobias & Tobias 2008). Although the subspecies M. a. hoggarensis Malicky 1998 has been recorded in Algeria (Hoggar Mountains), the studied specimens belong to M. a. aspersus . During our survey, the latter species was collected only at sites at high altitudes of 916–1065 m a.s.l.