Teleopsis sykesii ( Westwood, 1837 )

Feijen, Hans R., Feijen, Cobi & O., P., 2019, An annotated catalogue of the stalk-eyed flies (Diopsidae: Diptera) of India with description of new species in Megalabops Frey and Teleopsis Rondani, Israel Journal of Entomology (Oxford, England) 49 (2), pp. 35-72 : 49-50

Teleopsis sykesii ( Westwood, 1837)

( Figs 32, 39, 40, 51)

Diopsis sykesii Westwood, 1837: 310 (♀ lectotype, ♂ paralectotype, hill fort Hurreechunderghur , western Ghauts (Ghats) of the Deccan, 19°23'N 73°40'E (OXUM), Westwood named G.R. Gray as author)

Teleopsis sykesii (Westwood) : Rondani 1875: 442 (type species of Teleopsis ); Brunetti 1907: 165, 1928: 270; Bainbrigge Fletcher 1914: 6; Datta & Biswas 1985: 221; Feijen 1998: 52; Nair et al. 2007: 125, fig. 3.4.5c; Feijen & Feijen 2011: 14 (redescription, designation of lectotype); Dutta Saha et al. 2012: 534; Dhamorikar 2016: 93, pl. 20b, 2017: fig. 16 (right); Kotrba et al. 2013: 190, fig. 3i; Jamalabad 2014: 21 (picture).

Teleopsis fulviventris Bigot, 1880: 94 (♀ [not ♂ as stated by Bigot ] holotype by monotypy, India (OXUM): Feijen 1998: 52 (junior synonym of T. sykesii ); Mitra et al. 2015: 59 (overlooked status as junior synonym).

Teleopsis onopyxus SÉguy, 1949: 67 (♀ lectotype, 2♀ paralectotypes, “ Madagascar ”, 1877, A. Sallé, ( MNHNP), Feijen & Feijen (2011) showed that the type series must originate from India, where Sallé also collected T. sykesii ): Feijen & Feijen 2011: 144 (junior synonym of T. sykesii ) .

Not Teleopsis sykesii auct.: Van der Wulp 1896: 171, 1897: 193 (specimens from Nias and Java (Sukabumi) represent different undescribed species, the suggestion of synonymy with Teleopsis motatrix rejected by Feijen 2011); Meijere 1911: 366, 1916: 89, 1917: 328, 1919: 32 (representing in total three undescribed Teleopsis spp. from Java and Sumatra); Feijen & Feijen 2011: 145.

Not Teleopsis sykesi auct.: Frey 1928: 72; Tenorio 1969: 483 (= Teleopsis cobiae Feijen, 2011 ); Feijen & Feijen 2011: 145.

Distribution: Western India, especially the Sahyadri (Western Ghats): Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu. The record from Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh (Dhamorikar 2016) is well outside the known range of the Western Ghats. Two rather doubtful records are known for Myanmar (Feijen & Feijen 2011).

Remarks: T. sykesii is the type species of its genus. Together with its sister species T. amnoni n. sp. it forms an isolated T. sykesii species-group. The main differential characters of the two species are presented in Table 1. The difference in the wing pattern forms an especially easy way to separate them (cf. Figs 30, 31 with Fig. 32, and Figs 37, 38 with Figs 39, 40).