Dicromantispa basalis

Dicromantispa basalis (Navás) Mantispilla basalis Navás, 1927: 59. Holotype or Syntypes: female (CN). Type locality: Bolivia: La Paz: Coroico. Notes. This species was described by Navás (1927) from the city of Coroico, in the department of La Paz in Bolivia. The original description explicitly mentions the female sex, although without explicitly giving the number of specimens available to Navás. Therefore, it cannot be unambiguously decided if the description was based on one or more specimens (Ohl 2004; Snyman et al. 2018). The species was transferred to Mantispa by Penny (1977), which was followed by Ohl (2004), but it was listed again in Mantispilla Enderlein, the original genus, by Snyman et al. (2018). Both Ohl (2004) and Snyman et al. (2018) mentioned that the type or type series is supposedly deposited in Navás’ collection, but we could not find any further information. Without access to the types, the taxonomic identity of M. basalis poses some questions. Based on the original description, it is very likely that this species belongs in Dicromantispa, based on the overall body coloration. The species was described as presenting a yellowish color, a mark shaped as a “ Y ” at the vertex, anterior region of pronotum with three short longitudinal lines, and the forefemur internal surface darker, all characters associated with Dicromantispa. The original description also mentions that the forewing is hyaline with some yellow veins, characters that are currently associated with D. gracilis, which is a widespread species ranging from southern South America to Costa Rica, including records from Bolivia. In this sense, we are herein synonymizing Mantispilla basalis Navás, 1927 under Dicromantispa gracilis (Erichson, 1839) based on the original description of the species, since the type material is apparently lost. (new combination, new synonym)