Dactylolabis (Coenolabis) posthabita

Dactylolabis (Coenolabis) posthabita (Bergroth, 1888) Comments. Dactylolabis (Coenolabis) posthabita is a very rare and poorly known species, originally described by Bergroth (1888) from Slovenia (Ljubljana) as Limnophila posthabita. Savchenko (1982) examined the type series (three males), redescribed the male genitalia, and transferred the species to Dactylolabis, tentatively placing it in the subgenus Coenolabis. However, this placement remained uncertain because the subgenus is primarily defined by female characters, while only males were known at that time. Erhan-Dincă (1984) later reported the species from Romania (Eastern Carpathians), providing records of 16 males and 10 females and schematically illustrating the male terminalia. She referred to the species as Coenolabis without question and without further discussion. Savchenko (1986) later noted that he had received specimens from Erhan-Dincă, including females, and briefly mentioned that the ovipositor of the Romanian D. (C.) posthabita females is similar to that of D. (C.) aberrans, characterised by short hypogynial valves, although this was not illustrated. The species was later reported from Hungary by Kolcsár et al. (2021) based on five males. In addition, the first author located further material in the HNHM, including female specimens from Hungary. Erhan-Dincă (1984) reported 14 males and 10 females deposited in the Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History (Bucharest, Romania). However, the Romanian material now appears to be either lost or remains uncatalogued in the Diptera collection of the Grigore Antipa Museum (Melania Stan pers. comm.). Comparison of three males and one female from Serbia with the male genitalia illustrations provided by Savchenko (1982, repeated in 1986), as well as those of Erhan-Dincă (1984), and with photographs of Hungarian specimens published by Kolcsár et al. (2021), together with additional Hungarian material, revealed several minor differences. The most notable difference is observed in the Hungarian and Serbian females, which possesses well-developed, elongate hypogynial valves reaching approx. half-length of the cerci, in contrast to the condition mentioned by Savchenko (1986) for the Romanian material. Unfortunately, due to the unavailability of Romanian specimens, direct comparison with the original material was not possible and the illustration provided by Erhan-Dincă (1984) is schematic and cannot be used for detailed comparison in case of males. We compared the type material deposited in the MZH with specimens from Hungary and Serbia and found clear but relatively minor differences among the three populations, most notably in the Hungarian specimens (see discussion below). However, the examined material shows no distinct differences in habitus, coloration, wing venation, or antennal segmentation, a degree of morphological uniformity also observed in other species of Coenolabis (Savchenko 1969). Therefore, we treat the Hungarian population as a new subspecies rather than a distinct species, pending future genetic analyses that may clarify its taxonomic status and degree of differentiation.

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