Aethiopomyia gigas (Stein, 1906)

O'Hara, James E., Raper, Christopher M., Pont, Adrian C. & Whitmore, Daniel, 2013, Reassessment of Paleotachina Townsend and Electrotachina Townsend and their removal from the Tachinidae (Diptera), ZooKeys 361, pp. 27-36 : 29-31

Aethiopomyia gigas (Stein, 1906) Figs 1-6

Spilogaster gigas Stein, 1906: 37. Syntypes, 1 male and 2 females (Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin; seen by Pont 2013: 77). Type locality: Cameroon, Barombi.

Paleotachina smithii Townsend, 1921: 134. Holotype male, in copal (NHM, No. 58513). Type locality: East Africa ( Grimaldi et al. 1994). Syn. n.

Remarks.

Smith (1868: 183), in his explanation of a plate of “amber” inclusions, wrote the following caption for the specimen that later became the holotype of Paleotachina smithii : "Fig. 2.-A Dipterous Insect belonging to the European genus Echinomyia . Enlarged one-half". Based on this caption and the figure itself, Townsend (1921: 134) wrote the following for his new genus and species: " Paleotachina gen. nov. smithii sp. nov. (fossil).-Proposed for Echinomyia sp. Smith (1868), Qu. Jn. Sc. V, 183, f. 2. From the Lower Oligocene of Baltic amber. The description indicates one of the Larvaevorini or allied tribes".

The " Larvaevorini " of Townsend (1921) later became known as the Tachinini when Larvaevora Meigen, 1800 was suppressed by ICZN (1963). Although the species Paleotachina smithii was not described by Townsend (or by Smith, despite Townsend’s statement to the contrary), the species-group name was made available by bibliographic reference to fig. 2 in Smith (1868) (Article 12.2.1 of ICZN 1999). Townsend (1942: 17) later provided a brief description of the genus, presumably from fig. 2 in Smith (1868), and referred to the genus as "evidently tachinid".

A considerable amount of artistic liberty was taken in the depiction of NHM specimen #58513 (holotype of Paleotachina smithii ) in fig. 2 in Smith (1868), which was also shown as a mirror image of the original specimen; cf. Figs 1, 4.

The holotype of Paleotachina smithii is a large fly in the family Muscidae , with a body length of about 14 mm and a wing length of about 14 mm. It is well preserved, but large parts of it are obscured by masses of small air bubbles (see Figs 2-5). The conformation of the abdominal tip suggests that it is a male, but nothing can be seen of the head and associated features. Because of its size, coloration and habitus, the presence of very long stout setae on abdominal tergites 4 and 5, and a vein M that is weakly curved forward towards vein R4+5 in its apical part (Fig. 6), leaving a wide open cell r4+5, the species can be readily assigned to either Aethiopomyia Malloch or Alluaudinella Giglio-Tos, two genera confined to the Afrotropical Region. It is possible to see several small setulae on the node at the base of vein R4+5, and such setulae are present in Aethiopomyia but not in Alluaudinella . Other characters used to differentiate these genera (proepisternal depression setulose or bare, katatergite with fine setulae or bare) cannot be seen in the holotype.

The scutum, scutellum and at least abdominal tergites 4 and 5 are black; the remainder of the body (the head excepted) is yellow. The femora and tibiae are yellow, and the tarsi black. This coloration is most similar to that of Aethiopomyia gigas (Stein), described from Cameroon and widespread though never common across western, eastern and southern Africa. Paleotachina smithii Townsend, 1921 is accordingly synonymized with Aethiopomyia gigas (Stein, 1906), syn. n.