The family Conopidae (Diptera) in Egypt and Saudi Arabia

Abstract Background The present study is one in a series of planned studies aiming to catalogue the whole order Diptera in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia. New information All known Egyptian and Saudi Arabian conopid taxa are systematically catalogued in the present study. Three species are recorded herein for the first time from Saudi Arabia: Conops (Asiconops) elegans Meigen, 1804 and Thecophora atra (Fabricius, 1775) (Al-Baha region, south-western of Saudi Arabia), and Conops (Conops) quadrifasciatus De Geer, 1776 (Tabuk region, north-western of Saudi Arabia). Physocephala variegata (Meigen, 1924) is also recorded for the first time from Gebel Elba, the south-eastern triangle of Egypt. Considering that Gebel Elba in Egypt and Al-Baha in Saudi Arabia are affiliated to the Afrotropical Region, this is the first time Physocephala variegata and Thecophora atra have been recorded from the Afrotropical Region. An updated taxonomy, world and local distributions, dates of collection and some coloured photographs are provided.


Introduction
The Conopidae, commonly known as thick-headed flies, are an interesting brachycerous family of usually large-sized wasp-like flies. Many conopids are most frequently found at flowers feeding on nectar using their long proboscis and considered as important pollinators. The majority of conopid larvae are obligatory endoparasitoids of adult Hymenoptera, such as bees and wasps. Adult conopid females aggressively intercept their hymenopterous hosts in the field to deposit their eggs (Freeman (1966), Gibson and Skevington (2013), Pape et al. (2011), Stuke (2017), Azmy et al. (2016)). The family Conopidae is represented by 808 valid species assigned to 57 genera worldwide (Stuke 2017). Conopids are found in all parts of the world, except Antarctica and the Pacific Islands (Gibson et al. 2013).
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are two neighbouring Middle Eastern countries, separated by the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea (Fig. 1). Both countries are located at the junction of the Palaearctic and the Afrotropical Regions and the faunal affiliation of them is mainly Palaearctic, except Gebel Elba, the south-eastern triangle of Egypt and the south-western part of Saudi Arabia, south to the Tropic of Cancer, which are considered as Afrotropical (Hölzel 1998, Wallace 1876, El-Hawagry and Gilbert 2014. Some previous studies have been carried out in Egypt on the taxonomy and faunistics of the family Conopidae, including Kröber (1924), Kröber (1925), Kröber (1927), Kröber (1929), Steyskal and El-Bialy (1967), Mohammed and Negm (1991), Azmy (2016) and Azmy et al. (2016), in addition to some miscellaneous studies which described some new species from Egypt as Kröber (1915a), Wiedemann (1830), Macquart (1835) and Rondani (1850). On the other hand, no previous faunistic or taxonomic studies on the family Conopidae have been carried out before in Saudi Arabia and only a few species have been described or recorded there amid some miscellaneous studies, such as Macquart (1851), Kröber (1915a), Zimina (1963), Walker and Pittaway (1987), Abu-Zoherah et al. (1993), Stuke and Clements (2008),  and .
The abundance and diversity of conopid species in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia seem to be low (17 species in Egypt and 12 species in Saudi Arabia) comparable with the total number of species known from the Palaearctic Region (173 species) and from the Afrotropical Region (187 species) (Stuke 2017). However, this should be taken with caution, since the family Conopidae seems to lack sampling efforts, especially in Saudi Arabia. This is most likely due to the fact that documentation of biological diversity in Saudi Arabia began in the second half of the 1960s and no systematic studies on the Conopidae have been previously conducted in this country. We think that the faunistic data of these flies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia is still scanty and more efforts would be highly required.
The taxonomy of Conopidae in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia is updated in the present study. Twenty species assigned to five genera and three subfamilies (Conopinae, Myopinae and Zodioninae) are treated (Table 1). Three species, Conops ( Asiconops) elegans Meigen, 1804, Conops (Conops) quadrifasciatus De Geer, 1776 and Thecophora atra (Fabricius, 1775), are recorded for the first time from Saudi Arabia.  Conopid species treated in the present study as recorded from Egypt and Saudi Arabia (* = recorded, -= not recorded).
Physocephala variegata (Meigen) is recorded for the first time from Gebel Elba, the southeastern triangle of Egypt and Thecophora atra (Fabricius) is recorded for the first time from the south-western part of Saudi Arabia. Considering that Gebel Elba in Egypt and the south-western part in Saudi Arabia including Al-Baha Region are affiliated to the Afrotropical Region, this is the first time that these two species from the Afrotropical Region have been recorded. Walker (1871) described Conops auratus from "Hor Tamanib" which belonged to Egypt at the time of description; however, it lies now in Sudan. Steyskal and El-Bialy (1967) inaccurately listed this species as an Egyptian species, based mainly on the misleading type locality. Thus, this species is excluded from the Egyptian list in the present study.
This study is one in a series of taxonomic studies on different Egyptian and Saudi Arabian dipteran taxa aiming to catalogue the whole order Diptera in the two countries.     Notes: This species was listed by Steyskal and El-Bialy (1967), Chvála and Smith (1988), Azmy (2016) as recorded from Egypt, but these records could not be verified and require confirmation as no specimens have been collected or preserved in Egyptian museums.    Notes: This species was listed by Kröber (1915b), Steyskal and El-Bialy (1967), Azmy (2016), Stuke (2017) as recorded from Egypt, but no specimens have been collected or preserved in Egyptian museums.

Subgenus Conops Linnaeus
Conops ( Local distribution and dates of collection (Fig. 3) Kröber (1915a), Kröber (1924), Kröber (1927), Stuke and Clements (2008), Stuke (2014), Azmy (2016)   Notes: This species (Fig. 12b) is recorded herein for the first time from Saudi Arabia and this is the first record in the Afrotropical Region considering the south-western part of Saudi Arabia to be affiliated with the Afrotropical Region.