Oxysarcodexia thornax (Walker, 1849)

Musca auriflua Wiedemann, 1830: 364 . Unavailable name. (Originally proposed in synonymy with Musca tessellata Fabricius, 1805 and not validated by subsequent usage.)

Sarcophaga thornax Walker, 1849: 814 .

Sarcophaga pudica Rondani, 1850: 174 .

Sarcophaga aurifinis Walker, 1853: 325 .

Oxysarcodexia neotropicale Prado & Fonseca, 1932: 36 .

Distribution: Neotropical – Argentina (Buenos Aires, Catamarca, Jujuy, Misiones, Tucumán), Bolivia, Brazil (Amazonas, Ceará, Espirito Santo, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo), Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru.

Material studied: Buenos Aires: 2 ɗ, 3 Ψ Campana, Campana, III.2003, Mariluis leg. (ANLIS); 1 ɗ Ciud. Aut. Buenos Aires, II.2002, Mulieri leg. (ANLIS).

Remarks: Detailed illustrations of male terminalia can be found in Blanchard (1942a) and Lopes (1946a). The female terminalia were described by Lopes (1976) and Tibana & Mello (1983).

Biology: Previous works indicate that O. thornax is very abundant, especially during summer and autumn in Brazil, with a wide range of habitat and bait preferences (Ferreira 1979; Linhares 1981; Dias et al. 1984 a, b, c; Mendes & Linhares 1993). Two natural larviposition habits were alternatively recorded for this species: on faeces or dung (D’Almeida 1988, 1989; Mendes & Linhares 1993; Marchiori et al. 2001; Mendes & Linhares 2002), and on dead fish (D’Almeida 1994).