Conops (Physocephala) acroschistus Speiser 1911

Stuke, Jens-Hermann & Clements, David K., 2019, New conopid records from the Afrotropical Region (Diptera) - Part 3: Physocephalini, Bonn zoological Bulletin 68 (2), pp. 209-273 : 240

Conops (Physocephala) acroschistus Speiser 1911

Primary type material examined. ♂ holotype of Conops acroschista Speiser, 1911 : (1) “ Holo- / TYPE”; (2) “Musée du Congo / Kasaï: Kondué / E. Luja ”; (3) “R. DÉT / B / 1477”; (4) “Type! / Conops (Physocephala) / acroschistus m. / P. Speiser det.”/; (5) “RMCA ENT / 000012172”; coll. MRAC .

The holotype reported here fits in all aspects to the origi- nal description and there is no reason to assume that it is not the type specimen, although according to the original description this should be in the Museum d’Histoire Nat- uralle du Grand-Duchy de Luxembourg (MGDL). Cam- ras (2001) reported concerning a specimen in the MGDL as follows: “The unidentified holotype of acroschista was finally found by J. M. Guinet and he informed me that Luja was the collector.” The specimen reported by Camras (2001) was a female, however, whereas in the original description it was explicitly stated that the type was a male, and a male is described. Evidently there are more than one specimen bearing the same labels, which led to the misinterpretation of the female specimen in the MGDL. Camras placed the species in his Pseudophysocephala vitripennis species-group, having presumably misinterpreted the species due to this wrongly labelled specimen. The synonymy of P. intermedia Kröber, 1936 and P. acroschista which was introduced by Camras (2001) is therefore invalid and P. acroschista should be treated as valid species (status rev.: valid species).