Sphacophilus afer (Pasteels, 1963) Liston & Goergen & Koch, 2017

Liston, Andrew D., Goergen, Georg & Koch, Frank, 2017, Revisions of the Afrotropical genera of Argidae and species of Pampsilota Konow, 1899 (Hymenoptera, Tenthredinoidea), Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 64 (1), pp. 1-25 : 3

Sphacophilus afer (Pasteels, 1963) comb. n.

Sterictophora [sic] afra Pasteels, 1963: 540-541. Described: male (holotype, MNCN). Type locality: “Cameroun” (Cameroon). Images of holotype and labels by A. Taeger: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.746940.

Notes.

Sterictiphora afra Pasteels, 1963 has been regarded as the only Afrotropical species of Sterictiphora , an otherwise Holarctic and Oriental genus. The holotype (examined) is the only known specimen of the species. It is labelled "Kamerun 1898", in the same handwriting as on the label attached to the type of Clyparge terminalis ( Taeger et al. 2014): see under that name above. In the keys by Koch (1988) and Smith (1971, 1992), Sterictiphora afra runs without problem to Sphacophilus Provancher, 1888. This genus contains about 50 valid species, distributed in the Neotropical and Nearctic Regions. Species taxonomy of Sphacophilus is based mainly on females, and males of many species are unknown, or the association of the sexes is problematic ( Smith 1992). We were unable to identify the holotype of Sterictiphora afra to species level, using the keys by Smith (1971, 1992) and reference to several original descriptions. However, the colour pattern of the Sterictiphora afra holotype is distinctive within this genus. Apart from the recently described Sphacophilus monjarasi Smith & Morales-Reyes, 2015 ( Monjarás-Barrera et al. 2015), no other known species has this combination of completely black head and thorax, including the entire legs, and an almost completely yellow abdomen. Sphacophilus monjarasi is unfortunately only known in the female sex. Its type locality is in Chiapas Province, Mexico. In view of the lack of any other evidence for its presence in the Afrotropics, we recommend that Sphacophilus afer , simultaneously the only representative of the Sterictiphorinae there, should be removed from the list of Afrotropical sawflies.