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Empis opaca
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Subspecies
Original
description
Synonyms
Empis quadrilineata
Gmelin, 1790 (nomen dubium, see note below)
Empis opaca Meigen, 1804 (nec Fabricius, 1805)
Empis opaca opaca Meigen, 1804
Empis brunnipes Meigen, 1804 (nomen dubium; see
below)
Empis opaca Fabricius, 1805 (nec Meigen,
1804)
Empis affinis Stephens, 1829
Empis opaca apteropus Bezzi, 1899
Empis apteropus (Bezzi, 1899)
Note: with the name Empis quadrilineata
Gmelin (1790) named a specimen in the "Museum
Leskeanum", the private collection of Nathaniel
Gottfried Leske (1751-1786). However, Gmelin
presumably never saw the specimen, but just
copied the description of the specimen from the
list in "Museum Leskeanum" (Zschach 1788;
Karsten 1789) and invented an "appropriate"
binomial name for it. Thus, the name is a nomen
dubium and cannot be assigned to species.
However, based on the short description in the
"Museum Leskeanum" I suggest that it might be a
synonym of Empis opaca.
Note: Empis brunnipes has been described by
Meigen on the basis of a single male specimen.
The species is not mentioned in later
publications, not even by Meigen himself. The
name is thus a nomen dubium. However, I place it
as an unclear synonym in the synonymy of Empis
opaca, because the short description best fits
this Empis species: the grey thorax with four
brown lines, the yellow-white halteres, brown
wings with yellow bases, and the reddish-brown
legs in the description of Empis brunnipes fit
with Empis opaca. However, Empis opaca is much
larger than the 2 Parisian lines given by Meigen
for Empis brunnipes. In addition, Meigen states
that the proboscis of Empis brunnipes is
"short", but does not specify this in more
detail. The proboscis of Empis opaca ist not
particularly long, but it also is not the
shortest in the genus. Thus, the synonymy of the
names must remain tentative; the single Empis
brunnipes specimen might have been an abberant
male of Empis opaca. Alternatively, Chvala and
Wagner (in Soos and Papp 1989) suggest that
Empis brunnipes might belong in the genus
Hilara.
Identification
Distribution
Biology
This page has been updated on January 27, 2012
This site is online since May 31, 2005
Copyright © by Nikola-Michael Prpic. All
rights reserved.
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