Amblypsilopus abruptus (Walker, 1859)

Grichanov, Igor Ya., 2022, Six new species of Amblypsilopus Bigot (Diptera: Dolichopodidae: Sciapodinae) and a key to species of the Afrotropical mainland, European Journal of Taxonomy 789 (1), pp. 49-80 : 55

Amblypsilopus abruptus species group

Diagnosis

See Bickel (1994) for a full diagnosis of the species group. The Afrotropical Amblypsilopus abruptus species group shares mostly primitive characters, such as the short antennae, broad face, mostly nonornamented and non-elongated legs, unmodified wing venation, usually dark body and femora, simple cercus and surstylus.

Notes

The Amblypsilopus abruptus species group is widespread throughout the Old World tropics. The Madagascan fauna numbers six mostly endemic species including A. cilifrons reported also from Cameroon, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Togo and Zimbabwe. The following species known from the Afrotropical mainland belong to the A. abruptus species group: A. auratus , A. cilifrons , A. disjunctus , A. longifilus , A. miser , A. munroi , A. perniger , A. signatus and A. tenuicauda . Amblypsilopus spiniscapus sp. nov. and A. gabonensis sp. nov. are also associated with the A. abruptus species group, differing from all other species of the genus in the presence of dorsal bristles on the antennal scape. Amblypsilopus auratus , A. cilifrons , A. longifilus and A. munroi are the commonest species known each from many countries on the continent, sometimes reported from the Atlantic (St Helena) and Indian Ocean islands ( Madagascar, Sri Lanka). It seems that A. perniger , A. signatus , and A. tenuicauda have had no reliable records after their descriptions ( Grichanov 2018).