Helius Lepeletier & Serville, 1828

Podenas, Sigitas & Byun, Hye-Woo, 2014, New Limoniinae crane flies (Diptera: Limoniidae) of Korea, Journal of Species Research 3 (2), pp. 167-182 : 175-176

Helius Lepeletier & Serville

Helius Lepeletier and Serville, 1828 (in Latreille et al., 1828); Edwards, 1921, 1938; Lackschewitz and Pagast, 1942; Ishida, 1959; Savchenko and Krivolutskaya, 1976; Savchenko, 1983, 1986, 1989.

Megarhina Lepeletier and Serville, 1828 (in Latreille et al., 1828).

Leptorhina Stephens, 1829 .

Rhamphidia Meigen, 1830 .

Type species - Limnobia longirostris Meigen, 1818 .

Medium sized crane flies, wing length 7.0- 10.5 mm. General body coloration brown to dark brown. Most characteristic feature of genus is distinctly elongated rostrum, which often two or three times exceeds length of head. Prescutum with tuberculate pits missing and with small pseudosutural fovea. Wing elongate, paddleshaped, usually spotless, in some species with darkenings along cord or at frontal wing margin. Vein Sc long, tip of Sc 1 reaches approximately to branching point of Rs, Sc 2 close to Sc 1 tip. Radial sector (Rs) comparatively short, usually nearly straight, sometimes slightly arched or angulated and short-spured at base. It has only two branches R 2 + 3 and R 4 + 5. Cross-vein R 2 reduced. Radiomedial (r-m) cross-vein very short or even absent. Discal cell (D) present, it is usually large. @asal deflection of CuA 1 situated slightly beyond branching point of M. Second and third pairs of coxae are close to each other, because meron is strongly reduced. Male genitalia large. Ninth tergite and sternite fused and forming complete genital ring. Ninth tergite wider than longer, posterior margin usually bears two wide lobes or wide median incision. Gonocoxite usually with or sometimes without interbase. Usually present two pairs of terminal gonostyles, sometimes inner gonostyles are reduced or totally missing. Outer gonostylus usually strongly arched and often armed with small teets or bumps. Tip of penis often modified, sometimes asymmetric. Ovipositor elongate with long narrow and slightly arched cercus and long hypovalvae, which usually reaches not further than one-third of cercus length.

Larval body coloration dark brown, larva entirely covered with long setae. @ody form terete and elongate. Abdominal segments 4 to 8 each with ventral creeping welts formed by spinulae. Larvae are metapneusnistic. Spiracular disc with five triangular fleshy spiracular lobes. Dorsal lobe the smallest. Each lateral and ventral lobe with two wedge shaped sclerites; dorsal lobe entirely covered by single sclerite. Spiracles small, oval in shape. Anal field surrounded by four stout cylindrical anal papillae with a slight constriction near the apex. Head capsule hemicephalic, prognatous, oval-shaped with distinct coronal and frontal sutures. Labrum small, triangular, fused with broad membranous clypeus. Hypostoma with five teeth similar in size, deeply split behind. Hypopharynx arch-shaped, sclerotised and dentated. Larvae develop in organic rich soil near swamps, in mud among roots of plants or in litter of marshy plants.

Pupa terete, gradually tapering from base of wing pads to slender cauda. Pronotal horns long, cylindrical apically slightly depressed. Tips of wings reach third abdominal segment. Numerous spiracular openings situated laterally. End of female abdomen cone-likely narrowed with three pairs of sclerotised dorsal hooks. Cauda of male abdomen rounded with additional three pairs of sclerotised dorsal hooks ( Cramer, 1968; Podeniene, 2002).

Genus includes 231 species, which are further separat- ed into 9 subgenera. The largest is nominative subgenus, which includes 180 species. Genus is distributed worldwide ( Oosterbroek, 2014). 87 species, are known from Oriental Region; 50 species are described from Neotropics; 44 species from Australia and Oceania. One species is shared between Oceanian islands and Oriental Region. Much less species are known from Holarctic: 17 species have Eastpalearctic distribution, 5 Westpalearctic, with two species common between East- and Westpalearctic. Nearctic has only two species. 16 fossil species, belonging to that genus, were found so far, with oldest representatives from Lower Cretaceous ( Evenhuis, 2014).