The scientific name of the ubiquitous Whiteleg Toktokkie / White-legged Toktokkie of South Africa has long been a troublesome matter and a point of confusion. A team of world experts has now confirmed that the scientific name "Dichtha incantatoris" is not only wrong, but that this name had never existed in a "legal" way.

It seems that the three editions of the Field Guide to Insects of South Africa by M Picker, C Griffiths & A Weaving are the source of this problem. In both the first edition (PGW2002) and the second (PGW2004), the Whiteleg Toktokkie is shown as No. 1 on page 232. In the third edition (PGW2019), the Whiteleg Toktokkie appears as No. 2 on page 276. In all three these editions, the scientific name is given as "Dichtha incantatoris". That is wrong. It is unknown where these authors obtained this scientific name from. I managed to trace specimens misidentified as such in the Natural History Museum, London, but not in any South African museum. The undisputed influence of P, G and W has unfortunately polluted the internet, as a simple Google search will show.
 
 
In a monumental work published in 2019 [reference & link below at 'Source: Sepidiini catalogue' -- open access], the highly meticulous team of authors concluded on page 22 that:

"Dichtha incantatoris / incantatoria Koch, 1952” is considered here as a nomen nudum, since no published record of this species-group name was found during the present work.

'Nomen nudum' literally translated means "naked name." At its essence the term means that the name does not exist. It is obvious that the name should therefore not be used.
 
 
Although I am not completely certain of the following, it seems that the valid and appropriate name of the Whiteleg Toktokkie is Dichtha cubica. These brilliant photographs should help:
►http://virtualcollections.naturalsciences.be/virtual-collections/entomology/coleoptera/tenebrionidae/pimeliinae/dichtha-cubica-guerin-meneville-1845.
 
I do not know whether all the white-legged cuboid South African toktokkies belong to this species. It is possible that existing iNaturalist observations may be misidentified. There are a total of five valid Dichtha species in the known universe, and they are now all loaded into the iNat dictionary:    https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/515204-Dichtha.
 
 
If you own any of the PGW fieldguides, I strongly suggest that you scratch out "Dichtha incantatoris" on the pages mentioned above, and replace it with Dichtha cubica.
Use a pen, not a pencil.