Sarcophaga Haemorrhoidalis - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

Sarcophaga haemorrhoidalis was first described by Carl Fredrik Fallén (1764–1830), a Swedish botanist and entomologist, in 1817 during his tenure at Lund University between 1814–1827. Fallén first named this species Musca haemorrhoidalis in 1817 not knowing that Charles Joseph de Villers had already named an unrelated species Musca haemorrhoidalis in 1789. In 1826, Johann Wilhelm Meigen, a German entomologist famous for his pioneering work on Diptera, described the same species that Fallén had described in 1817 as Sarcophaga cruentata following Meigen's description of the genus Sarcophaga. Since two different species can not share the same name, the Sarcophaga cruentata that Meigen coined would serve as the species name. According to Wharton, the exact nomenclature of this species is dynamic and currently has two accepted names: Sarcophaga haemorrhoidalis and Bercaea cruentata. Thomas Pape, who is considered to be the World's foremost expert on Sarcophagidae uses Sarcophaga but has assigned several subgenera, including Bercaea. Some current workers, including Ferrar, use Bercaea haemorrhoidalis. Sarcophaga comes from the Greek (sarkos-) meaning 'flesh,' and (phag) meaning 'eat.' Haemorrhoidalis comes from Greek roots (haemo-) meaning 'blood,' (rhoos-) meaning 'stream' or 'flowing,' and the Latin (alis) meaning 'extraordinary.'