Usia grisea Efflatoun, 1945

Gibbs, David, 2023, A world review of the bee fly tribe Usiini (Diptera, Bombyliidae) - Part 3: Parageron Paramonov s. lat., European Journal of Taxonomy 863 (1), pp. 1-162 : 151

Usia grisea Efflatoun, 1945 , unplaced Usiinae

Fig. 68

Usia grisea Efflatoun, 1945: 214 .

Type material

Holotype (not examined)

EGYPT • ♂; “ Wadi Ehameib (West Elba Mountain). 28 February 1938, leg. Mohamed Tewfik Effendi ( Efflatoun 1945)”; ESEC.

The holotype male is in ESEC, photographs suggest that it still exists but are not sufficient to read the data labels.

Remarks

With the holotype being inaccessible, and no non-type material running to this species nor fitting Efflatoun’s (1945) description, the placement of this taxon is difficult. The plate in the Smithsonian archive [Image no. SIA2012-7883] ( Fig. 68 ) seems to show a typical Parageron s. lat. ( Protypusia gen. nov.), relatively robust, short postpedicel, long hair across mesonotum, short discal cell, A 1 +CuA 2 (petiole of anal cell) short and A 1 angled where it meets CuA 2 just before wing margin (left wing only). On the other hand, it is a tiny species and Efflatoun keyed it close to A. elbae , compares it to A. elbae in the description, and appears to illustrate the Apolysis articulating arista in Efflatoun (1945: pl. 20 fig. 319).

Given the contradictory evidence, and the fact that the holotype persists, assigning it to a genus here cannot be justified. The possibility that it is conspecific with one of the species of Protypusia gen. nov. treated above has been researched, but none fit the description of U. grisea very closely. However, it could well belong in Protypusia and this is accounted for in the key.

Distribution

The single male was collected in Wadi Ehameib, West Elba Mountain, close to the Sudanese border.

Figures

Fig. 68. Usia grisea Efflatoun, 1945, habitus, Smithsonian Institution Archives. Image SIA2012-7883.