Keys for the identification of Ptychopteridae

African fauna

The following document concerns the African fauna south of the Sahara.

Hutson (1980) in the Catalogue of the Diptera of the Afrotropical region (Crosskey et al) listed eight species of Ptychopteridae, five from the mainland and three from Madagascar. All of these species are from genus Ptychoptera and were described by Alexander between 1917 and 1958. Alexander (1957) notes that the only other species of the genus from Africa is the Palaearctic P. surcoufi (Séguy), described in 1925 from Algeria.

The document contains the original descriptions of these nine species, those of the Madagascan species and P. surcoufi translated from the French. The mainland species are Ptychoptera capensis Alexander 1917, Ptychoptera africana Alexander 1920, Ptychoptera camerounensis Alexander 1921, Ptychoptera uelensis Alexander 1928 and Ptychoptera matongoensis Alexander 1958. The Madagascan species are Ptychoptera madagascariensis Alexander 1937, Ptychoptera pauliani Alexander 1957 and Ptychoptera robinsoni Alexander 1957. I have also constructed keys to the species which are based on those of Alexander