Sciara florissantensis Cockerell, 1917

Dale E. Greenwalt, Daniel J. Bickel, Peter H. Kerr, Gregory R. Curler, Brian V. Brown, Herman de Jong, Scott J. Fitzgerald, Torsten Dikow, Michal Tkoč, Christian Kehlmaier & Dalton De Souza Amorim, 2019, Diptera of the middle Eocene Kishenehn Formation. I. Documenting of diversity at the family level, Paleontologia Electronica 22 (2), No. 50, pp. 1-56 : 22

Sciara florissantensis Cockerell, 1917 , reassigned. Figure 18

Material examined. Holotype, USNM 61995 , housed in the National Museum of Natural History , Washington, D.C., USA.

Type horizon. Florissant Formation, latest Eocene.

Type locality. Florissant , Colorado.

Remarks

Sciara florissantensis was described by Cockerell (1917a) as a male. The body length is 4.5 mm, wing 3.6 mm; wings hyaline, veins not setose; Sc colorless, R 1 long, its length 60% of R 4+5; r-m approximately 0.38 mm long, fork of media not preserved; first two antennal joints short and broad, following ones cylindrical, longer than broad; apical part of gonostyle slender (Figure 18.1-3). This specimen was not figured by Cockerell. Figure 18.3 herein shows that nothing of the medial or cubital veins is preserved. Although Cockerell pro- vided a measurement for the stem of M, this vein is not visible in the fossil. There is some pigmentation at the base of the costal cell, but the preservation of Sc is debatable — a tibia covers part of this portion of the wing. There is nothing to indicate that the specimen belongs to Sciaridae let alone Sciara . We therefore assign this specimen to Sciaroidea incertae sedis.

Figures

FIGURE 18. Sciara florissantensis Cockerell 1916, USNM 61995. 1, Habitus; 2, Head and antennae; 3, Right forewing. Long arrow denotes 1st abscissa of Rs; the arrowhead points to remnants of the r-m crossvein. Scale bar equals 1.0 mm (1, 3), 0.25 mm (2).