Corresponding author: Torsten Dikow (
Academic editor: Jukka Salmela
The southern African assassin-fly genus
The genus
This review was instigated by the collection of 10 specimens of
Morphological features were examined using a
Terminology follows
Species descriptions are based on composites of all specimens and not exclusively on the holotype and are compiled from a character matrix of 205 features and 242 character states assembled with
The following data on species occurrences are given (where available): country, state/province, county, locality, geographic co-ordinates (formatted in both decimal and degrees minutes seconds latitude/longitude), elevation (in meters), date of collection (format: yyyy-mm-dd), habitat information, sampling protocol (if other than hand netting), collector, catalog number (a unique specimen number and any other identifying number), depository (institution and collection code), number of specimens, sex, life stage, name of person who identified the specimen, and any other previous identifications. Each specimen is listed with a unique specimen number (either an institutional catalog number or an AAM-XXXXXX number used by the author) that will allow the re-investigation as well as provide a unique
Whole habitus photographs of pinned specimens were taken using a
The dichotomous, interactive key has been build with
Institutions providing specimens are listed below, together with the abbreviations used in the text when citing depositories (institutionCode), a link to the record in the Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories (
The phylogenetic studies on
The species is distinguished from its congener by the dorso-medially white macrosetose anepisternum (in addition to white setae, Figs
Known from Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa and therefore widely distributed in southern Africa, but rarely collected (Fig.
The type locality of
Botswana: Central: Serowe (
Not known to occur in any of the southern African biodiversity hotspots (Cape Floristic Region, Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany, or Succulent Karoo).
The species is distinguished from its congener by the dorso-posterior white setose anepisternum (not macrosetose, Figs
The species is named after and dedicated to the memory of my late father, Jürgen Dikow, who has always been supportive of my entomological work and was excited to hear about every new species discovery I made.
The species is so far only known from Namibia and in particular from the eastern edge of the Namib desert sand dunes (Gobabeb, Homeb, and Sesriem) as well as the Karoo in southern Namibia (near Grünau) (Fig.
All recently collected specimens during field work at or near the Gobabeb Research and Training Center conducted in February 2012 were perching on sand. The majority of specimens were collected on the large sand dunes south of the station and Kuiseb river bed (Fig.
Four female specimens have been captured with prey at or near Gobabeb of which three were feeding on
Namibia: Erongo: Namib-Skeleton Coast National Park, Gobabeb (dunes south of station at
Not known to occur in any of the southern African biodiversity hotspots (Cape Floristic Region, Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany, or Succulent Karoo).
1 | Anepisternum dorso-medially white to light brown macrosetose (6–7 short macrosetae) (Fig. |
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– | Anepisternum dorso-medially only white setose (without short macrosetae) (Figs |
On first examination, the two
Unfortunately, specimens previously studied by
I would like to thank the museum curators who made specimens available through loans and for their hospitality when visiting the collections. Dawn Larson and Simon van Noort (SAMC) provided a photograph of the sole
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Habitat photographs of Namib sand dunes at Gobabeb and Karoo near Grünau.
large, mostly bare sand dunes at Gobabeb (
large, mostly bare sand dunes and partly vegetated interdune valleys at Gobabeb (
small, vegetated sand dunes at Gobabeb (
habitat near Grünau (
Map of southern Africa with elevational relief and biodiversity hotspots (in grey) showing distribution of
Seasonal incidence of
species | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May |
|
3/1 | 1 | 5/3 | 5/5 | 2/1 | |||||||
1 | 1 | 2/1 | 11/4 |
Natural-language species descriptions of Anasillomos as exported from Lucid Builder 3.5 in XML SDD format
natural-language descriptions in SDD format
Natural-language species descriptions of
File: oo_39101.sdd
Multi-entry, matrix-based identification key to Anasillomos as exported from Lucid Builder 3.5 in XML SDD format
Multi-entry, matrix-based key in SDD format
Multi-entry, matrix-based identification key to Anasillomos as exported from Lucid Builder 3.5 in XML SDD format
File: oo_39102.sdd