Penthetria heros Say, 1829

Fitzgerald, Scott J., 2021, Penthetria Meigen (Diptera: Bibionidae): Revision of the New World species and world catalog, Zootaxa 4926 (4), pp. 451-500 : 493

Penthetria heros Say, 1829

Type Material. Female , “ Mexico ” ( Say 1829) .

The species is unrecognizable from Say’s (1829) original description of a single female from “ Mexico ” and as with many of Thomas Say’s types, the type of this species may be lost or destroyed; the type (s) of P. heros were not found at ANSP, BMNH, MZHF, NHMW, or OXUM. According to a historical account of Say’s collecting trip to Mexico ( Papavero & Ibáñez-Bernal 2001 and references therein), “Say, in the company of William McLure, travelled and collected along the old road between Veracruz, Jalapa, Mexico City, and Tacuba, beginning in the autumn of 1827; and on the approach of summer (1828) they returned to the United States.” While this account helps to narrow down the location of the type locality of P. heros , several species of Penthetria occur in this area of Mexico.

The species was not mentioned in Hardy’s (1945) work on the Neotropical species though the name was later included in Neotropical catalogs ( Hardy 1959, 1966) and other regional lists of Bibionidae ( Fitzgerald 2000) . Considering that this species is unrecognizable from the original description and the type could not be found, P. heros is here treated as unrecognized (nomen dubium).