PROC. BIOL. SOC. WASH. 104(4), 1991, pp. 816-839 S. W. WILLISTON'S SPECIES OF EPHYDRIDAE (DIPTERA) FROM ST. VINCENT (WEST INDIES) Wayne N. Mathis and James F. Edmiston Abstract. — Lectotypes are designated for the following species: Athyroglossa atra, Discomyza dubia, Athyroglossa nitida, Discocerina nana, Discocerina ob-scura, Discocerina facialis, Notiphila decorata, Notiphila bellula, Paralimna multipunctata, Paralimna obscura, Ilythea flavipes, and Scatella obscura. No-menclatural changes resulting from this study are as follows: Dichaeta furcata Coquillett is a junior synonym of Notiphila decorata Williston; Psilopa nigro-puncta Williston is a junior synonym of Psilopa girschneri Von Roder; Psilopa desmata Williston is transferred to Polytrichophora where it is the senior syn-onym of P. boriqueni Cresson; Hydrina nitifrons Williston is transferred to Hyadina; and Athyroglossa atra Williston is accorded valid species status (pre-viously it was listed as a junior synonym of A. glaphyropus Loew). In 1896, Samuel Wendell WiUiston, then a professor of geology at the University of Kansas, published a rather remarkable monograph on the Diptera of St. Vincent. As a result, the dipterous fauna of St. Vin-cent remains one of the best studied in the Western Hemisphere. Williston's mono-graph included 161 genera and approxi-mately 345 species, of which 256 were new-ly described. The vast majority of Williston's species are still valid, although many have been transferred to other genera, and in a few cases, other nomenclatural changes have resulted. The thoroughness of Williston's treat-ment is likewise a testament to the excellent collecting of H. H. Smith, an American en-tomologist who was an experienced collec-tor in the tropics and who was sent to the West Indies to assist the West Indian Com-mittee (Papavero 1973). The Royal Society of England established this committee, and Smith was employed specifically to collect insects on these islands for the purpose of "... investigating the Rora and Fauna of the West Indies" (Wilhston 1896:253). Most of the collections that Smith made on St. Vincent were eventually deposited in the British Museum (Natural History) (now "The Natural History Museum"). The spec-imens of Diptera, however, were first sent to Professor Williston, who was a well-known dipterist in addition to being a pro-fessor of paleontology. Although Williston contributed much to our knowledge of St. Vincent's fauna, Diptera specifically, he never set foot on the island. Among the 345 species of Diptera that comprise the monograph (the total also in-cludes Aldrich's sections on the families Phoridae and Dolichopodidae), Williston included 26 species of Ephydridae, of which 24 were newly described. One species, Dro-sophila pollinosa, was described in the fam-ily Drosophilidae. Williston noted that this species was probably an ephydrid but pre-ferred to describe it in Drosophila because some of its characters would (p. 414) " . . . lead one to search for the species in this genus." The species is now assigned to the ephydrid genus Paratissa. The two species that were described previously are Cresson-omyia aciculata (Loew) and Hydrochasma leucoproctum (Loew). The importance of Williston's mono-graph to the study of Ephydridae is several
BioStor
