Brachyptera dinarica Aubert, 1964

(Figs 11–12)

Brachyptera dinarica Aubert, 1964 — Aubert 1964: 287 (original description of male and female); Illies 1966: 57 (catalog); Berthélemy & Gonzàlez del Tánago 1983: 14 (comparison with B. vera); DeWalt et al. 2011 (catalog).

Material examined. Holotype male: ALBANIA: Skodra (Shkodër), 0 9.02.1918, leg. Karny (WNHM; used for drawing Fig. 12, terminalia prepared on plastic sheet and pinned under the dry specimen). Paratypes: BOSNIA- HERZEGOVINA: Radusa (Raduša), 1902, leg. O. Leonhard: 4f (WNHM; used for drawing Fig. 11, dry specimens, one of the terminalia prepared on plastic sheet and pinned under the specimen).

Remarks. In the male of B. dinarica the distal plate of the ventral process of the epiproct differs slightly from the illustrations presented in the original description (Aubert 1964: Fig. 4), being narrower than its rod and the dark margins parallel in the basal half (Fig. 12). This structure is similar to those of Brachyptera sislii (see Kazanci 1982: Fig. 4 and Kazanci 2000: Fig. 9); nevertheless, the two species differ distinctly in the male subgenital plate (see Aubert 1964: Figs. 1–3, Kazanci 1982: Figs. 1–3 and Kazanci 2000: Figs. 6–8). The paratype females of B. dinarica are similar to both B. tristis (Klapálek, 1901) and B. sislii, and no distinguishing characters were found to separate the females of the latter two species, either using fresh specimens or by comparison with descriptions ( B. tristis: Kis 1974, B. sislii: Kazanci 2000).

Conspecifity of the male holotype of B. dinarica and the female paratypes was already questioned by Berthélemy & Gonzàlez del Tánago (1983), and these authors noted that the females are probably conspecific with B. tristis . Indeed, the Bosnian male of the type series (labeled as allotype by the original author) is missing in the WNHM, and the Albanian female that Aubert (1964) reported as B. tristis in the same paper proved to B. b. beali (Berthélemy 1971) . The redescription of these two species was accomplished only after the description of B. dinarica ( B. tristis: Kaċanski & Zwick 1970, B. b. beali: Berthélemy 1971), and Aubert was not familiar with the true B. tristis when he described B. dinarica . Nevertheless, the paratypes cannot be assigned to B. tristis with certainity, as the males of the two species are distinctly differ and the now missing Bosnian male was reported from the same locality as the four female paratypes.

Brachyptera dinarica is known only from the six type specimens, and nothing is known about the exact habitat. The early collection date of the holotype suggests a late winter emergence period. Despite intensive collection efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the species has not been recollected (Kaċanski 1971, 1976). My own repeated early spring efforts around Shkodër, Albania, also failed to yield additional specimens. Surprisingly, Kaċanski (1979) ommitted this species from her checklist of Bosnia-Herzegovina stoneflies.