Daspletis : Loew 1858
Creators: name: Londt, Jason G. H.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 1983
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Asilidae
Daspletis

description: <i>Daspletis</i> Loew <b>Daspletis</b> Loew, 1858: 337. Type species <i>D</i>. <i>vulpes</i> Loew, 1858: 337, by monotypy. <b>Neodysmachus</b> Ricardo, 1925: 263. Type species <i>N</i>.: <i>setithoracicus</i> Ricardo, 192 5: 264, by original designation. Syn. nov. Ricardo (19 5) erected the genus <i>Neodysmachus</i> for one Cape species of <i>Daspšetis-like</i> flies which possess an open rs cell. This is insuf&amp;filig;cient groundso n which to base a genus. Venation can be highly variable and the open or closed condition of wing cells may not be an entirely reliable feature. In. <i>hermanni</i>, for example, rf, may be open, closed on the wing margin, or closed and with a stalk-vein joining the cell to the wing margin. I consider <i>Neodysmachus</i> a synonym of <i>Daspletis</i>. The separation of <i>Daspletis</i> and Microstylum is in some ways far more problematic as these genera share so many features. Both Hull (196) and Oldroyd 1974) use the character ‘ &amp;filig;rst posterior cell open’ to characterize <i>Microslylum</i> in their keys. My preliminary observations on this genus indicate that the closed condition also exists, especially in species of the <i>M</i>. <i>acutirostrae</i> group. The genus <i>Eclipsis</i> Bezzi was listed as a valid genus by Oldroyd (1980) in the Afrotropical Catalogue even though Papavero (1973) had placed it as <b>a</b> 'subgenus' of <i>Microstylum</i>. The only described species of <i>Eclipsis</i>, <i>E</i>. maculiventris Bezzi, possesses a closed rs cell and is quite clearly related to <i>M</i>. <i> <i>acutirostrae</i> and related species (some of which remain undescribed). It is obvious that this characteristic is unreliable. The strongly arched M; vein frequently used to characterize <i>Microsgylum</i> is also unsatisfactory as there are some instances where it is dif&amp;filig;cult to decide if the vein is ‘ strongly’ arched or not. For the present I am relying on three other features, which appear to be common to all described species of Afrotropical <i>Microsçylaém</i>, to separate this genus from <i>Daspletis</i>. The facial protuberance of <i>Daspletis</i> occupies at least three-quarters of the face while in <i>Microsçvlum</i> this swelling is con&amp;filig;ned to the lower half of the face and often only to a small area just above the lower facial margin. <i>Daspletis</i> species are more bristly; the dorsocentrals extend from the posterior to the anterior margins of the mesonotom, whereas in <i>Micraslylum</i> they are well developed only posterior of the transverse suture (there may be one or two small ones anterior of the suture but they are never found near the anterior margin of the mesonotum); the postmetacoxal membrane is covered with long setae in all <i>Daspfetís</i> while this membrane is bare in most <i>Micrasÿlaem</i>. The reliability of these features is not known with any certainty at present but I intend revising Microstyšam at a future date and this matter will be attended to then.</i> <i>Daspletis</i> appears to be active in late summer (Table 1); the exceptions being <i>hermanni</i> (which is active in spring) and <i>setithoracicus</i> (active from October-May).
description: Published as part of <i>Londt, Jason G. H., 1983, The Genus Daspletis Loew, 1858 And The Description Of Two New Genera, Anasillomos And Remotomyia (Diptera: Asilidae: Stenopogoninae), pp. 283-308 in Journal of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa 46 (2)</i> on pages 285-288, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.11781
description: {"references": ["LOEW, H. 1858. Bidrag till kannedomen om Afrikas Diptera [part] Ofversigt afkoeniglic / i Swenska vetenskapsAkademien\u0192orhandlingar 14: 335 - 341.", "RICARDO, G. 1925. New species of Asilidae from South Africa. Annals and magazine ofnatuml history 15 (9): 234 - 282.", "HULL, F. M. 1962. Robber Flies of the World; the genera of the family Asilidae. Bulletin ofthe United States National Museum 224 (2 parts). 907 pp.", "e 1974. An introduction to the robber flies (Diptera: Asilidae) of southern Africa. Annals ofthe Natal Museum 22: 1 - 171.", "L 1980. Asilidae In: Catalogue of the Diptera ofthe Afrotropieal Region. R. W. Crosskey (ed). British Museum (Natural History), London. 1437 pp (Asilidae 334 373).", "PAPAVERO, N. 1973. Studies of Asilidae (Diptera) systematics and evolution. 1. A preliminary classification in subfamilies. Arquivos de Zoologia 23: 217 - 274."]}