Lichtwardtia coxalis Kertesz , 1901

Tang, Chufei, Yang, Ding & Grootaert, Patrick, 2018, Revision of the genus Lichtwardtia Enderlein in Southeast Asia, a tale of highly diverse male terminalia (Diptera, Dolichopodidae), ZooKeys 798, pp. 63-107 : 63

Lichtwardtia coxalis Kertesz, 1901

Rhagoneurus coxalis Kertész, 1901: 411. Female. Type locality: Singapore.

Material.

The type was probably conserved at the Hungarian Museum for Natural History. It is no longer in their collections and probably destroyed ( Foldvary and Papp 2007).

Diagnosis from Kertész.

Hind coxa largely blackish brown. Hind femur without preapical bristle and hind basal tarsomere lacking long bristles. Cross veins not brownish seamed.

Comments.

It is likely that this species is one of the four species that we actually recorded in Singapore. It is not L. singaporensis sp. n. since it has the cross veins brownish seamed and the hind coxa yellowish. L. nodulata sp. n. has a broad swelling where R1 joins the costa and the hind coxa is yellowish (Figure 6). L. semakau sp. n. has also a yellow hind coxa (Figure 8). L. formosana Enderlein is the most plausible candidate because it is particular in having only the anterior half of the hind coxa dark brown (rectangular sclerotisation) while the posterior part is yellowish to yellowish brown (Figure 19). Maybe Kertész meant this in stating that L. coxalis has "auch die hinterhüften in grosser ausdehnung schwarzbraun". However the shape of the black sclerotisation is so remarkable. In his key, Kertész (1901) described the similar shape of the mid coxa of L. polychroma but not for the hind coxa. L. formosana from Singapore possesses an anterior preapical bristle on the hind femur (lost on Figure 19) that is according to Kertész not present in L. coxalis .

Since it was described on the basis of a female and that the holotype seems to be lost, we think it is not appropriate to sink L. formosana as a junior synonym having its holotype conserved. The confusion is bigger since de Meijere (1912) quotes L. coxalis (as Rhagoneurus ) from "Neu Guinea" but this is a misreading because Kertész clearly says that he obtained a female from Singapore by the courtesy of his friend Biro. Meanwhile, the description by Kertész is too simple to acquire any further comparison. Therefore, at this moment, L. coxalis is considered as a nomen dubium.