Megaselia Rondani, 1856

Disney, R. Henry L., Kurina, Olavi, Tedersoo, Leho & Cakpo, Yvonne, 2013, Scuttle flies (Diptera: Phoridae) reared from fungi in Benin, African Invertebrates 54 (2), pp. 357-357 : 358-359

Genus Megaselia Rondani, 1856

All but one specimen belong to the genus Megaselia . The recognition of the species in this huge genus is based on the male hypopygium in the first instance. Beyer has described many Afrotropical species culminating in a monograph ( Beyer 1965). However , he either fails to illustrate the hypopygia or his figures are sketchy and often misleading. Indeed it has been generally judged to be difficult to use Beyer’s keys with confidence. This is partly due to runs of couplets being based on male features only interspersed with couplets based on female characters only. Furthermore , Beyer described some species from females only, including cases where he described the male as a separate species. In addition his keys are notable for errors and omissions, such as the species from the Seychelles described by Collin, apart from there being many subsequently described species .

Both sexes of the four new species run to M. ahmedseifi Disney, 2009 in the keys to Arabian species (Disney 2009 b). With it these five species form a distinct species group.A key to all five species is given below. Otherwise the way the species run down in Beyer’s (1965) keys are indicated for each of the new species.