Psilota exilistyla Smit & Vujić, 2008

Heimburg, Helge, Doczkal, Dieter & Holzinger, Werner E., 2022, A checklist of the hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) of Austria, Zootaxa 5115 (2), pp. 151-209 : 173

Psilota exilistyla Smit & Vujić, 2008

In the year 2017, a single male was caught on Caltha palustris L. in a humid Picea abies forest in Styria. Smit & Vujić (2008) examined two voucher specimens of P. exilistyla deposited in the collection of the Natural History Museum Vienna. The label reads: “Unknown locality, 26.IV.1869 and 12.V.1869, 2♀ (leg. Prater col. NMW)”. We did an extensive literature research, but could not find a dipterologist with the surname “Prater”. It is reasonable to assume that “leg. Prater” refers to the locality (a well-known place in the centre of Vienna, where many entomologists collected insects in the 18 th century)—but not to the collector of the specimens. The current record from the year 2017 is thus the second single record from Austria, almost 150 years after the species was collected in Vienna by an unknown collector. The species was previously only known from Greece and France ( Smit & Vujić 2008).