Stilobezzia, Kieffer, 1911

Borkent, Art, 2024, The Phylogeny of the Genera of Biting Midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) of the World, Zootaxa 5438 (1), pp. 1-274 : 230

Stilobezzia :

- In males, frontoclypeus with dorsolateral flange of cuticle broadly attached to anterior tentorial pit (more narrowly attached in all other earlier lineages; see character 26 for further developments).

- Urbanek et al. (2015), in referring to the palisade setae of the hind tarsomere 1, state that Stilobezzia was the only genus they examined in which “the tongue and microtrichia of the palisade setae show the same posterior orientation in their sockets”. I was unable to confirm this observation.

- Male with ventral plate divided medially into two halves. This feature was discussed by Borkent (1995: character 39) where it was pointed out that Isthmohelea may also have a split ventral plate, as drawn by Wirth & Grogan (1988) and Szadziewski et al. (2022). The original drawing by Ingram & Macfie (1931: 210), however, shows the base of ventral plate medially abutting. Examination of the male holotype and paratype confirms that there is indeed a slender connection between the two halves of the ventral plate in Isthmohelea . The divided ventral plate is unique in the family but does not include species in the Stilobezzia (Acanthohelea) edwardsi group (Carzola & Spinelli 2012) which suggests this is the sister group to all those remaining Stilobezzia with the split ventral plate (and perhaps deserving of a new generic name). Further to this, Ronderos et al. (2012) described Stilobezzia enigma Ronderos, Spinelli & Borkent with a complete aedeagus (although bifid apically) but with a pupal synapomorphy indicating it to be related to some other Stilobezzia .