[Berliner Entomolog. Zeitschrift Bd. XXVII. 1883, Heft II.J 287 



On the genus Apiocera. 



By 

 0. R. Osten Sacken. 



The simultaneous possession of specimens of the Australian genus 

 Apiocera and of its American relative Anypenus has enabled me to 

 inquire into the hitherto doubtful question of their position in the 

 System. I have come to the conclusion, that their supposed connection 

 with the Midaidae is a very distant one, and that they are Asilidae. 

 I will begin with a survey of the literature on this question. 



The first who described an insect of that group, Wiedemann, at 

 once recognized an Asilid in it. Liaphria hrevicornis Wied. A. Z. 

 II. 646, 1830, from Australia, is an Apiocera, placed in the genus 

 Laphria probably on account of the structure of its antennae. Wiede- 

 mann adds however: ,,Uebrigens von schlanker Statur und darin mehr 

 einem Asilus ähnlich." 



Westwood introduced the genus Apiocera in the Lond. and Edinb. 

 Phil. Mag. 1835, and described two species; as to the place of the 

 genus, he hesitated between the Midaidae and the Nemestrinidae. He 

 expressed the same doubts in his Synopsis of the Midasidae (Arcana 

 Entomol. I, pag. 50, 1841), where a third species is added. With his 

 usual aecuracy, he did not overlook the characteristic macrochetae of 

 Apiocera ; they are mentioned in the letterpress and figured on the plate, 



Macquart, taking notice of the peculiarities of Laphria brevicornis 

 as described by Wiedemann , followed his usual method of work in 

 proposing a new genus of Asilidae, Tapinocera (D. E. I, 2, 1838), 

 for a species which he had never seen. From Wiederaann's data he 

 even constructed an iraaginary figure of the head (1. c. Tab. 6, 

 f, 5) and, as Wiedemann does not mention the extraordinary palpi, 

 the palpi on the figure are represented as those of an ordinary Asilid. 

 No wonder therefore that when nine years later, Macquart came across a 

 specimen of Apiocera, he did not recognize his Tapinocera in it, but 

 redescribed it again , as a new genus JPomacera. The new family 

 Pomaceridae is placed next to the Therevidae („se place naturellement 

 avant les Xylotomes", D, E. Suppl. II. p. 47 — 49), probably on account 

 of the shortness of its face. At the same time Macquart acknowledges 

 that the venation „ne se retrouve que dans les genres Erax et Procta" 

 canthe." 



Loew, in the first volume of the Monographs on the N. Amer, 

 Diptera (1862), as well as much later, in his correspondence with me, 

 xxvir. Heft II. 19 



