Pegophila meridionalis Rondani, 1856

Sforzi, Alessandra & Sommaggio, Daniele, 2021, Catalog of the Diptera types described by Camillo Rondani, Zootaxa 4989 (1), pp. 1-438 : 111

Pegophila meridionalis Rondani, 1856

ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: 1856: 129.

TYPE LOCALITY: Rondani gave no type locality in his original description but presumably it is Italy because the work deals with Italian species .

TYPE MATERIAL: 2 ♀♀, syntypes (very dirty) ( MZUF: Box 39): Pegophila Rnd. / meridionalis Schembr. , Melita / 2139.

CURRENT STATUS: valid species, as Notiphila meridionalis ( Cogan 1984: 147) ; nomen dubium in Ephydridae ( Mathis & Zatwarnicki 1995: 114) ; valid species, as Brachydeutera meridionalis ( Stuke 2011: 194) .

REMARKS: Rondani’s (1856: 129) key for the genus Pegophila Rondani, 1856 lists Pegophila meridionalis as its type species, but he did not provide a detailed description, type locality, number or sex of the specimens. Rondani (1856: 129) attributed the species name to Schembri. We found two syntypes in this study. An additional MZUF female numbered “2139” in not included in the type series because its label is yellowish rather than the greenish color of Rondani’s original handwritten ones and is in a lower row in the Box, for which reason we treat it to as a subsequent addition.