Archiconops hova (Janssen, 1954)

Stuke, Jens-Hermann, 2019, New conopid records from the Afrotropical Region (Diptera: Conopidae). Part 2: Conopinae excluding Physocephalini, Israel Journal of Entomology (Oxford, England) 49 (2), pp. 277-349 : 281

Archiconops hova (Janssen, 1954)

Material examined: Madagascar: 1♀, Berenty reserve 80 km W of Port Dauphin [25°00'S 46°18'E], 9.iv.1994, M. Wasbauer ( UCDC) .

Remarks: Stuke (2005) recognized A. hova as belonging to Archiconops and originally synonymised it with A. insularis because only slight differences between the female holotype of A. hova and the available male specimens of A. insularis were found. However, Camras (2007) subsequently examined the first confirmed male of A. hova and reported an additional character to separate males. Camras therefore reinstated A. hova as a good species, a decision that was accepted by Stuke (2017). Camras (2007) mentioned three characters to distinguish A. hova and A. insularis : (i) A. hova has denser dusting on the scutum and abdomen, this character was considered before by Stuke (2005) but was evaluated as being of minor significance; (ii) The wing of A. insularis is stated to be broader than half of its length whereas A. hova has a narrower wing. This character could not be verified in the material of A. insularis that I have at hand. The wing in these specimens is distinctly narrower than half its length; (iii) A. hova has a short protandrium (i.e. “a relatively short apical abdominal segment in the male, slightly shorter than the height”). This character rather depends on how one measures the height. In the specimens of A. insularis I have at hand the protandrium is slightly longer than the height (when viewed from the side) if the latter is measured from the base of the protandrium, but shorter if the maximum total height is measured due to the slightly protruding sternite 8 of the protandrium.

I am therefore not personally convinced that A. hova is a valid species, and it is at the very least suspicious that I seem only able to identify males of A. insularis and females of A. hova . The available and perhaps most constant characters to distinguish the species of the A. insularis group are summarised in Key 1.