Bibio fusiformis Heer 1849

Bibio fusiformis Heer, 1849

This species was described from the Miocene of Öhningen, Southern Germany and redescribed by Skartveit & Pika (2014). The species was recorded with some doubt from Aix-en-Provence by Heer (1856: 33). We have not seen any specimens of this species from French localities and judging from Heer’s (1856) brief description of the specimen it is almost certainly not identifiable at the species level. Its presence in French Oligocene sites is thus unproven and we regard it as unlikely. A specimen identified as Bibio cf. fusiformis and illustrated by Théobald (1937, Pl. XXI, Fig. 10) in FSL (FSL 391917) fits the specimens from Öhningen reasonably well but is not well enough preserved for a certain identification. Another specimen (BMNH In 39823) in BMNH is also in too poor condition to identify the species with any degree of certainty. Furthermore, there are four female specimens in MNHM (labeled with the numbers 209–212) identified as Bibio fusiformis. These share with the type specimens the conspicuously slender, cylindrical abdomen but are otherwise devoid of systematically useful characters.