Phosocephala alexanderi Fleming & Wood

Fleming, AJ, Wood, D. Monty, Smith, M. Alex, Janzen, Daniel H, Hallwachs, Winnie & Dapkey, Tanya, 2016, A new species of Phosocephala Townsend, 1908 (Diptera: Tachinidae) from Area de Conservacion Guanacaste in northwestern Costa Rica, Biodiversity Data Journal 4, pp. 7863-7863 : 7863

Phosocephala alexanderi Fleming & Wood sp. n.

Materials

Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: occurrenceDetails: http://janzen.sas.upenn.edu; catalogNumber: DHJPAR0048469 ; recordedBy: D.H. Janzen & W. Hallwachs, Freddy Quesada; individualID: DHJPAR0048469; individualCount: 1; sex: M; lifeStage: adult; preparations: pinned; otherCatalogNumbers: 12-SRNP-30536, ACGBA2011-12; Taxon: scientificName: Phosocephalaalexanderi; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Diptera; family: Tachinidae; genus: Phosocephala; specificEpithet: alexanderi; scientificNameAuthorship: Fleming & Wood, 2016; Location: continent: Central America; country: Costa Rica; countryCode: CR; stateProvince: Guanacaste; county: Sector Pitilla; locality: Area de Conservacion Guanacaste ; verbatimLocality: Estacion Pitilla; verbatimElevation: 675; verbatimLatitude: 10.98931; verbatimLongitude: -85.42581; verbatimCoordinateSystem: Decimal; decimalLatitude: 10.98931; decimalLongitude: -85.42581; Identification: identifiedBy: AJ Fleming; dateIdentified: 2015; Event: samplingProtocol: Reared from an Erebidae moth larva, Antiblemma Poole12; verbatimEventDate: Apr-04-2012; Record Level: language: en; institutionCode: CNC; collectionCode: Insects; basisOfRecord: Pinned Specimen Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: occurrenceDetails: http://janzen.sas.upenn.edu; catalogNumber: DHJPAR0048468 ; recordedBy: D.H. Janzen & W. Hallwachs, Freddy Quesada; individualID: DHJPAR0048468; individualCount: 1; sex: F; lifeStage: adult; preparations: pinned; otherCatalogNumbers: 12-SRNP-30537, ACGBA2010-12; Taxon: scientificName: Phosocephalaalexanderi; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Diptera; family: Tachinidae; genus: Phosocephala; specificEpithet: alexanderi; scientificNameAuthorship: Fleming & Wood, 2016; Location: continent: Central America; country: Costa Rica; countryCode: CR; stateProvince: Guanacaste; county: Sector Pitilla; locality: Area de Conservacion Guanacaste ; verbatimLocality: Estacion Pitilla; verbatimElevation: 675; verbatimLatitude: 10.98931; verbatimLongitude: -85.42581; verbatimCoordinateSystem: Decimal; decimalLatitude: 10.98931; decimalLongitude: -85.42581; Identification: identifiedBy: AJ Fleming; dateIdentified: 2015; Event: samplingProtocol: Reared from an Erebidae moth larva, Antiblemma Poole12; verbatimEventDate: Apr-06-2012; Record Level: language: en; institutionCode: CNC; collectionCode: Insects; basisOfRecord: Pinned Specimen

Description

Described from 1 male and 1 female. Length: 6mm.

Head: (Fig. 1b, e) bright yellow; ocellar bristles proclinate and strongly divergent; fronto-orbital plate haired, with yellow hairs insterspersed with black hairs; parafacial densely populated with short yellow hairs, not obvious unless viewed under varying angles of light; facial carina flat, nearly absent; antennal grooves only slightly distinguishable; facial ridge slightly darker than parafacial; first flagellomere brilliant orange, with hints of dark brown; gena 0.28x height of eye in male, 0.43x height of eye in female; gena densely haired, with short yellow-orange hairs, and with a small tuft of 4-5 short black hairs at base of eye. Thorax: (Fig. 1a, c, d, f) scutum gold pollinose presuturally, with 4 faintly visible vittae; postsuturally with gold only on the anterior margins along the corners, glabrous black over remainder including scutellum; thorax, laterally, of dark gray ground color with silver gray pollinosity giving it a silver sheen, with an overall dark appearance, and with long dark hairs; proepisternum, postpronotum, and proepimeron yellow; katepisternum, anepisternum, katepimeron and meron dark gray in ground color; katepisternum with 3-4 bristles. Abdomen: (Fig. 2a, c, d, f) ground color dark purplish black, base of T1+2 with silver pollinosity covering posterior 1/2 of underside of tergite, extending into anterior 1/4 of T3, anterior margins of tergites 3 and 4 bearing a narrow band of thin silver pollinosty visible laterally and ventrally, and also dorsally under certain angles of light. Legs: bright yellow, moderately covered with short black hairs. Wings: (Fig. 1a, d) smoky gray--------, bearing 4-5 short setulae at the base of R4+5. Male terminalia: not dissected so as not to damage the only available male specimen.

Diagnosis

The new species differs from P. metallica by its smaller size, the bright yellow head color, the black color of the posterior half of the thorax laterally, encompassing the katepisternum, anepisternum, katepimeron, and meron, and the long black hairs laterally on the thorax.

Etymology

Phosocephala alexanderi is dedicated to Mr. Alexander José Fleming of Ottawa, Canada, in recognition of the potential he has, as do all of the children of the world, to become the stewards and protectors of the biodiversity we describe here today.

Distribution

Costa Rica, ACG, Guanacaste, Estacion Pitilla, rain forest, 675m.

Ecology

Reared twice from larvae of Antiblemma Hübner belonging to the undescribed species Antiblemma Poole12 ( Lepidoptera : Erebidae ), which feeds on the leaves of Conostegia xalapensis ( Melastomataceae ).