Séguy (1933) described a species of the vittiger group from Côte d’Ivoire, which has differentiated F1 composite spines; i.e. the spines are borne on protruding tubercules that decrease in size distally. He called the species Zaprionus ornatus. Collart (1937a) considered this character an intraspecific variation and synonymised Zaprionus ornatus with Zaprionus vittiger. Chassagnard and Tsacas (1993) redescribed Séguy’s female holotype and illustrated the distinctive elongated spermatheca that had also been previously illustrated by Burla (1954) for Zaprionus aff. vittiger. In the same paper, they also described a new species from Congo with the distinctive elongated spermatheca and F1 ornamentation. They called the new species Zaprionus megalorchis and noted that the only difference between it and Zaprionus ornatus was the presence of silver pilosity on the inner side of flagellomere I in Zaprionus ornatus. Yassin et al. (2008a) erected the megalorchis species complex for the two species. However, we have examined a number of strains collected from the type locality of Zaprionus megalorchis and found the flagellomere I pilosity to be polymorphic. We consider thus Zaprionus megalorchis Chassagnard & Tsacas, syn. n. and Zaprionus aff. vittiger Burla, syn. n. to be junior synonyms to Zaprionus ornatus Séguy. Yassin et al. (2008b) have also considered Zaprionus megalorchis (and thus Zaprionus ornatus) a member of the indianus species complex, but it is considered here as belonging to an independent, monophyletic complex along with Zaprionus litos (Yassin et al., in press).