A nomenclatural note on European Chalarus (Diptera: Pipunculidae): a new synonymy of C. elegantulus Jervis, 1992

Recently, Kehlmaier & Assmann (2008) presented a revision of the European representatives of the big-headed fly genus Chalarus Walker, 1834. The work introduced four previously unknown taxa and provided diagnoses of all other known species, illustrated through numerous line drawings and photo-micrographs. In total, the authors treated 25 species including one nomen dubium. Three of these were known from males only and five solely from females. Taxonomic decision-making was backed up by molecular evidence, published partly therein and in the context of a phylogenetic study of the subfamily Chalarinae (Kehlmaier & Assmann 2010). Despite large collecting efforts, three taxa could not be analysed genetically, namely C. argenteus Coe, 1966, C. elegantulus Jervis, 1992 and C. proprius Jervis, 1992, all representing species based on females only. Shortly after the publication of the above mentioned revision, a specimen of C. elegantulus was identified amongst material sent by Dr. Gunilla Ståhls (Finnish Museum of Natural History, Helsinki): 1&, Finland, Ab (Regio aboënsis), Karjalohja, Karkalinniemi, 66581:33221, control trap #2, 25.VI.–22.VII.2007, leg. G. Ståhls, coll. C. Kehlmaier. The 5’ half of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) gene was sequenced following standard lab procedures (see Kehlmaier & Assmann 2010) using the primer pair LCO1490 and HCO2198 (Folmer et al. 1994). The resulting DNA-barcode (Genbank sequence accession number: FN999909) was compared against a set of reference Chalarus barcode sequences and matched C. absconditus Kehlmaier in Kehlmaier & Assmann, 2008 syn. nov., a species know from male specimens only, sharing an identical haplotype.