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Chrysopilus atratus
Black Snipefly
Schwarze Schnepfenfliege
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Subspecies
Chrysopilus
maerens is sometimes regarded subspecies of C.
atratus. The two taxa are indeed extremely
similar and are often mistaken for one
another. The definitions of Krivosheina (2006)
show that there are slight but significant
differences between the genitalia of C.
atratus (note that she uses the synonym C.
auratus) and C. maerens. I therefore
provisionally accept C. maerens as a separate
bona species. I do not
recognize subspecies of
Chrysopilus atratus.
Original description
Fabricius,
1781
Synonyms
Musca cristata
Fabricius, 1775 (nomen dubium and
unclear synonym)
Musca cristatus
Fabricius, 1775 (nomen dubium and
unclear synonym)
Chrysopilus
cristatus (Fabricius, 1775) (nomen dubium and
unclear synonym)
Rhagio atratus Fabricius, 1781
Atherix atrata (Fabricius, 1781)
Atherix atratus (Fabricius, 1781)
Musca atrata (Fabricius, 1781)
Leptis atrata (Fabricius, 1781)
Chrysopilus atratus (Fabricius, 1781)
Rhagio tomentosus Fabricius, 1794
Atherix tomentosa (Fabricius, 1794)
Chrysopilus tomentosus (Fabricius, 1794)
Atherix aurata Fabricius, 1805
Atherix auratus Fabricius, 1805
Leptis aurata (Fabricius, 1805)
Rhagio auratus (Fabricius, 1805)
Chrysopilus auratus (Fabricius, 1805)
Chrysopilus asiaticus Lindner, 1923 (unclear
synonym)
Rhagio maerens auct. nec Loew, 1873
Chrysopilus maerens auct. nec Loew, 1873
Chrysopilus aureatus auct. (a misspelling)
Chrysopilus cingulatus auct. nec Loew, 1856 (a
misidentification)
Chrysopilus helvolus auct. nec Meigen, 1820 (a
misidentification)
The Fauna Europaea Web Service (2004) lists
Chrysopilus cristatus as the valid name for
this species. I do not follow this notion for
the following reasons: Musca cristata has been
described by Fabricius in 1775, but the
description can only be tentatively assigned
to a species. In addition, Fabricius himself
does not list this species in Atherix, Leptis
or Rhagio in later works. Rather, he later
uses the name Musca cristata for a species of
Dolichopus (now calling it Dolichopus
cristatus). For these two reasons I regard this
name a nomen dubium that should not be used as
the valid name for a species. The identity of
the present species has been revised and
confirmed by Krivosheina (2006), but under the
name of Chrysopilus auratus. The descriptions
by Fabricius of Rhagio atratus and Rhagio
tomentosus, however, refer with some
confidence to the species identified as
Chrysopilus auratus by Krivosheina (2006). I
thus regard the nominal Rhagio atratus as the
oldest and valid name of this species.
Chrysopilus maerens is often regarded a
synonym or subspecies of C. atratus. The two
taxa are indeed extremely similar and are
often confused. The definitions of Krivosheina
(2006) show that there are slight but
significant differences between the genitalia
of C. atratus (as C. auratus) and C. maerens.
I therefore provisionally accept C. maerens as
a separate bona species.
Chrysopilus asiaticus is often regarded as a
synonym of C. atratus. However, Krivosheina
and Sidorenko (2007) argue that it is a bona
species. The genital morphology of the C.
asiaticus specimens studied by Krivosheina and
Sidorenko (2007) is very similar to the
genitalia of C. atratus studied in Krivosheina
(2006) (as C. auratus) and I therefore
regard the two names as synonyms for the time
being.
Identification
Distribution
Biology
This page has been updated on October 27, 2011
This site is online since May 31, 2005
Copyright © by Nikola-Michael Prpic. All
rights reserved.
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