Thread subject: Diptera.info :: Bombyliidae, Exoprosopa sp, Rhodes >E. dispar (female)

Posted by Piluca_Alvarez on 07-10-2016 08:02
#10

Dear Henrik, there is nothing to thank. You were the one that found and photographed and IDed the male and the female of the real E. dispar ;) There was a 'before and after' that moment :D

About the taxonomic position of these two species there is no consensus as far as I know. In the old times they were placed in Hyperalonia in the subgenus Cladodisca (and separately from the true Exoprosopa).

In the World Catalog for Bombyliids (1999) they appear as Heteralonia (genus with various subgenera) but in unplaced subgenera.

In Fauna Europaea they both appear within Exoprosopa. And in Systema Dipterorum (I think it was updated sometime after 2010) they appear as Heteralonia again but under the subgenus Zygodipla.

My opinion doesn't count as I am an amateur and certainly I cannot be more away from being a taxonomist ;) But for me, these 2 are too different from the real Exoprosopa. Exoprosopa s.st. (capucina, pandora, cleomene, jacchus, italica, bowdeni...) are all extremely related and share many characters in common. All the other species with the 'adicional vein' seem to be related but in a separate 'branch'. I am absolutely unaware of genitalia similarities within the groups or what DNA studies might be revealing. But to my amateur feeling the old classification had more sense: Exoprosopa s. str. and Exoprosopa s. lato (Hyperalonia, with several subgenera and dispar/rivularis within Cladodisca). Nothing seems to be like that anymore and I am sure there is a strong reason for that, of which I am totally unaware ;)

Loads of babbling for saying nothing, really :D Sorry, but this is all I can help you with :S