


REVISIONARY CLASSIFICATION OF RUTILIINI 125 
description, however, is clearly that of a species of the subgeneric concept Chrysorutilia and 
contains certain clues on which species he must have had before him. Most of the Chrysorutilia 
species from Australia have brilliant yellow heads, but the head of formosa is described as 
having a red interfrontal area (‘Frontaux rouges’) and the remainder mainly whitish (‘cdtes 
du front et face blanchatres’); the lower part of the face is described as bluish, which appears 
to suggest that the epistome is rather metallic. One species that is common in eastern Australia 
fits this description very well, as it has the parafrontals and parafacials whitish pollinose (there- 
fore contrasting with the red interfrontal area) and often shows distinct metallic colour on the 
epistome, and it is therefore from this species that the neotype specimen has been designated 
for formosa R.-D. Other characters of the species, including the male genital characters, are 
indicated in the accompanying key and text-figure. 
It should be noted that Robineau-Desvoidy’s description does not fit splendida (which is a 
species with brilliant yellow head), so that even if his use of foymosa and attribution to Donovan 
were a lapsus for splendida it is clear that he did not have the true splendida before him. Towns- 
end (1938 : 413) cited a ‘Musca formosa [Donovan] (1805)’ but there is no such nominal species 
in the works of Donovan; he also stated that formosa R.-D. is a synonym of retusa Fabricius, 
but the holotype of the latter still exists and has been examined and found to be completely 
distinct from any of the species of Chrysorutilia (belonging in fact in the subgenus Donovanius). 
Townsend’s (1915) genus Chrysorutilia rests nomenclaturally upon the statement ‘Genotype, 
Rutilia formosa Desvoidy, 1830, Essai Myodaires, 320’ without any account of the characters 
defining the taxon; since no characters are cited in this original ‘description’ it is here presumed 
that no conflict exists between Townsend’s original meaning of Chrysorutilia and the meaning 
given to it in the present work by designation of a neotype for formosa R.-D., the type-species. 
It should be recorded, though, that Townsend’s (1938) later meaning of Chrysorutilia (after he 
had synonymized formosa with retusa without any confirmatory evidence) is different and his 
definition in Manual of Myiology seems to apply better to the concept Donovanius Enderlein, 
here regarded as a valid subgenus. There were no specimens cited by Townsend in the original 
(1915) proposal of Chrysorutilia, and I hold therefore that Enderlein’s (1936 : 401-408) interpre- 
tation of Chrysorutilia Townsend, which is in conformity with the present interpretation based 
upon neotype designation for the cited type-species, is taxonomically correct—even if specimens 
later held to be formosa by Townsend belong to another concept. (It would not be a case of 
misidentified type-species because no specimens were cited in the original description by which 
Townsend’s meaning of formosa was established; the type-species of Chrysorutilia must therefore 
be the nominal species named by Townsend as type-species, i.e. the formosa R.-D. whose charac- 
ters are now pinned down by neotype designation.) 
Rutilia imperialis Guérin-Méneville, 1843 : 265. 
NEOTYPE¢. AvustrRaia, New South Wales, Mt Wilson, 2.1.1953 (M. F. Day) (in Australian 
National Insect Collection, Canberra). 
This species was described from a male and a female from ‘Nouvelle-Hollande’ without 
further data. It occurs mainly in south-eastern Australia (New South Wales and Victoria) 
and as much of the early collecting was done in New South Wales the neotype specimen desig- 
nated is from that state. 
Rutilia lepida Guérin-Méneville, 1843 : 268. 
NEOTYPE ¢g. Ausrratia, Australian Capital Territory, Blundell’s, near Canberra, 19.iv. 
1948 (Paramonov) (in Australian National Insect Collection, Canberra). 
This species was described from a specimen from ‘Nouvelle-Hollande’ without further data. 
The careful description of Guérin-Méneville leaves really no doubt that his name /epida applies 
to the species later described by Macquart as Rutilia fulgida. The latter name has not been in 
use for any species of Rutilia (and was never, for instance, mentioned by Malloch in his various 
papers on Rutiliini), and no disruption of nomenclature arises from fixing the specimen here 
cited as neotype of Jepida and sinking Macquart’s name fulgida in new synonymy (see p. 73). 
The lectotype of fulgida Macquart (designated by Crosskey, 1971) is in the British Museum 
