Dasypogon carvilius Walker, 1849

Londt, Jason G. H., 2014, A revision of Afrotropical Oligopogon Loew, 1847 (Diptera: Asilidae) with the description of eighteen new species, African Invertebrates 55 (2), pp. 269-269 : 312

Dasypogon carvilius Walker, 1849

Dasypogon Carvilius Walker, 1849: 341–342 .

Oligopogon ? carvilius: Kertész 1909: 62 ; Hull 1962: 212.

Walker described Dasypogon Carvilius on a female specimen of unknown provenance. Most of Walker’s material is housed in the Natural History Museum, London, but this particular specimen is not there and has not been traced. Why Kertész (1909) included it, admittedly with a question mark against the name, under Oligopogon is a mystery. Hull (1962) probably followed Kertész by listing the species under Oligopogon . Although there remains a remote possibility that this species was correctly allocated to the genus, I believe there is sufficient evidence to warrent its removal from the list. Walker’s (1849) description of the antennae reads as follows – ‘feelers tawny; first [scape] and second [pedicel] joints beset with short black hairs; second joint a little shorter than the first; third joint [postpedicel] black, very long spindle-shaped, clothed with a few black hairs, nearly twice the length of the first and of the second; fourth joint [style] very small’. There is, therefore, no mention of the longish style with highly diagnostic setae characteristic of Oligopogon – those setae that are mentioned are located on the postpedicel. In describing the legs Walker states ‘fore legs armed with a long curved black tooth at the tip of the shank’. No such process is known in Oligopogon but common in genera of Dasypogoninae (eg. Pegesimallus Loew, 1858). Until evidence is found to negate my action I am removing the species from Oligopogon .