Notes on the Afrotropical hover fly genus Meromacroides Curran (Syrphidae, Eristalinae)

Terence Bellingan,Georg Goergen,John Midgley,Kurt Jordaens

doi:10.3897/afrinvertebr.62.68360

Abstract

The African endemic hover fly Meromacroides meromacriformis (Bezzi, 1915) (Syrphidae, Eristalinae) was described more than a century ago and its monotypic status established in 1927, but subsequent collections and publications are rare. Only the male has been described and nothing is known about its biology. We re-describe the male, including geographic variation, describe the female for the first time and provide the first DNA barcodes for the species. Despite the large range and observed variations, there is insufficient evidence to describe additional taxa in the genus. Biological observations are presented, which may shed some insight into this rare and enigmatic hover fly, whose known distribution now spans the Afrotropical Region.

Highlights

The African endemic hover fly species Meromacroides meromacriformis (Bezzi, 1915) was described as Eristalis meromacriformis by Bezzi (1915), based on a single male from “South Africa”, without a collecting date and was said to be in poor condition
The phylogenetic affinities of the genus Meromacroides within the Afrotropical Region are not well known; on the basis of morphological characters, the genus appears to be closely related to Senaspis Macquart, 1850 from which it differs in the dichoptic eyes in the male, the pilose eyes and the more swollen metafemur
We observed a p-distance of 1.9% between DNA barcodes from specimens from Togo and South Africa

Summary

Introduction

The African endemic hover fly species Meromacroides meromacriformis (Bezzi, 1915) (subfamily Eristalinae) was described as Eristalis meromacriformis by Bezzi (1915), based on a single male from “South Africa”, without a collecting date and was said to be in poor condition. Curran (1927) studied two males from Stanleyville [=Kisangani] in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (collected on 8 and 10 April 1915) and two females from the same locality (one without collecting date, the other collected in March 1915) without giving a description of the female. Based on his observations, he placed the species in its own genus, Meromacroides Curran, 1927. We re-describe the male of M. meromacriformis and describe the female for the first time, including geographic variation, provide high-resolution images of both sexes and of the male genitalia and provide the first DNA barcodes for the genus

Materials and methods

Discussion