Plecia conjungens ( Schiner, 1868 )

Schelesky-Prado, Daniel de Castro & Falaschi, Rafaela Lopes, 2023, Notes on presumed Neotropical records and species of Hesperinus Walker, 1848 (Diptera: Bibionidae), EntomoBrasilis (e 1059) 16, pp. 1-6 : 2-4

Plecia conjungens ( Schiner, 1868)

Hesperinus conjungens Schiner, 1868: 23 .

Hesperinus conjugens (erroneous spelling) [in Hunter, 1900: 296; Hardy, 1967: 170; Mohrig et al., 1975: 339; Krivosheina & Krivosheina, 2015: 313].

Plecia conjugens ( Schiner, 1868) (erroneous spelling) [syn. by Hardy, 1967: 170].

Type locality: Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Novara-R . Distr.: Brazil.

Refs.: HARDY 1966: 1; HARDY 1967: 170.

SCHINER (1868) described H. conjungens based on one male from Brazil. Despite having described it as Hesperinus, Schiner reported that the specimen was more similar to Plecia in relation to several generic characteristics, such as short antennae and male terminalia, except for the "peculiar slender body structure and the long legs". Possibly another feature that led it to be placed in Hesperinus was the presence of dichoptic eyes of the specimen, something unusual for males of Plecia and always present in Hesperinus . HARDY (1967) did not explicitly justify the transfer of the species to Plecia , but he probably considered the wing venation, especially the R 2+3 vein, and other features already observed by Schiner, such as the short antennae. After HARDY (1967), no other author examined the specimen. Unfortunately, the type whereabouts is unknown. We also contacted Dr. Neal Luit Evenhuis, senior entomologist at the Bishop Museum collection, because Dr. Dilbert Elmo Hardy worked at this museum and the specimen could be there, and Dr. Scott J. Fitzgerald, because he has been working with Neotropical Plecia for many years. Unfortunately, the type specimen was not found and it is presumed to be lost.

Two spellings of the specific name appear in the literature: " conjungens ", the original spelling ( SCHINER 1868), and " conjugens ", a misspelling that apparently appears for the first time in HUNTER (1900). According to EVENHUIS & PAPE (2023), " conjugens " is a name in prevailing usage and is available by the ICZN Art. 33.3.1 ( ICZN 1999). However, we found six studies that use " conjungens ", including the original work ( SCHINER 1868; KERTÉSZ 1902; HARDY 1959, 1966; KRIVOSHEINA & MAMAEV 1967a; PAPP 2010), and only four that use " conjugens " ( HUNTER 1900; HARDY 1967; MOHRIG et al. 1975; KRIVOSHEINA & KRIVOSHEINA 2015), excluding online databases such as EVENHUIS & PAPE (2023). Therefore, we decided here to use the original spelling " conjungens ".

Some studies correctly considered P. conjungens in Plecia and not in Hesperinus , or just considered that Hesperinus does not occur in the Neotropical Region( PINTO & AMORIM 2000; FITZGERALD 2004; FALASCHI et al. 2016). It is important to note that CARRERA (1944) records were ignored by these works. On the other hand, several articles erroneously listed P. conjungens as a species of Hesperinus , ignoring HARDY (1967) reclassification. These articles also ignored Carrera's records. Of the fourteen publications, three explicitly mention H. conjungens , while the remainder do so implicitly ( Table 1 ). The references employed by these articles to consider the species within Hesperinus may (1) predate HARDY (1967), such as HARDY (1966), used by AMORIM et al. (2002) or (2) postdate HARDY (1967), such as PAPP (2010), used by NEL & SKARTVEIT (2012). PAPP (2010), in turn, uses KRIVOSHEINA & MAMAEV (1967a), an article prior to HARDY (1967).

A plausible reason for these errors could be the significant roles of Dilbert Elmo Hardy and Nina P. Krivosheina in Bibionidae studies. Hardy was a major contributor to Bibionidae taxonomy ( EVENHUIS & THOMPSON 2004), publishing catalogs ( HARDY 1959, 1966) that were crucial for research on the Neotropical fauna of Diptera . Consequently, some studies, such as FALASCHI et al. (2018), may have relied on Hardy's catalogs, trusting his scientific authority. However, they may have done so without conducting a comprehensive literature review, thereby overlooking that H. conjungens was reclassified under Plecia shortly after the 1966 catalog's publication by the same author. Similarly, Krivosheina, who has been publishing on Hesperinus since the 1960s ( KRIVOSHEINA & MAMAEV 1967a, 1967b), may have been referenced in studies that used her works ( KRIVOSHEINA 1997, 1999) containing the erroneous Neotropical Hesperinus . The subsequent studies may have failed to review all the literature, trusting the scientific authority of the previous authors.

Another plausible reason is the lack of an updated world catalog of the family. The most recent world catalog found is KERTÉSZ (1902), published more than a century ago. Also, the most recent catalogs focused on Neotropical fauna predates HARDY (1967) ( HARDY 1959, 1966). Online databases, such as the Catalogue of Life ( COL) ( ITIS 2023) and Global Biodiversity Information Facility ( GBIF 2023), erroneously list H. conjungens instead of P. conjungens based on EVENHUIS & PAPE (2023). So, if there is no updated world catalog of Bibionidae , which involves a deep scanning of the literature, subsequent authors will rely on someone else's work, whether updated or outdated.

This underscores the importance of both literature reviews in taxonomy, irrespective of the authors' prominence, and the need to publish reliable world catalogs for the fauna, in addition to updating online databases.