A Revision of the Genus Leptoconops, Skuse

Abstract

The genus Leptoconops was erected in 1890 by the Australian dipterist Skuse for a minute black Chironomid fly which he captured at Woronora, near Sydney, New South Wales. This genus he placed in the last of the three sections into which he divided the family Chironomidae, namely, the Ceratopogonina. The fly greatly resembled a small species of Simulium in general facies, and presented certain peculiar characters which rendered it strikingly distinct from other members of the section. Indeed, certain authors (Mik 1894, Johannsen 1905) have since drawn attention to the marked similarity in the wing venation of an American species (L. torrens, Twns.) and Corynoneura, a genus of the subfamily Chironominae. Later (1907) Noé suggested the formation of an additional subfamily—Leptoconopinae—for the Australian and allied species (at that time classified in three genera), and Malloch (1915), although acknowledging that the genus Tersesthes, Twns. (a synonym of Leptoconops), was unknown to him, associated it with the Chironominae rather than with the Ceratopogoninae. Apart from the wing venation, however, Leptoconops shows no affinities with Corynoneura, but rather agrees with the Ceratopogonine midges, particularly in regard to the structure of the thorax and mouth-parts. Several species of Leptoconops have now been described, but owing to differences in the interpretation of, or slight variations in, some of the generic characters given by Skuse, as well as to subsequent descriptive errors, they have, in greater part, been referred to the genera Tersesthes, Twns., and Mycterotypus, Noé. As was to be expected, however, the close agreement exhibited in the diagnoses of these genera and of Leptoconops has caused several authors to suggest their identity; but indefinite or partial conclusion* only were reached, since the genotype of Leptoconops (L. stygius, Sk.) was not re-examined.