Lichtwardtia semakau Grootaert & Tang

Tang, Chufei, Yang, Ding & Grootaert, Patrick, 2018, Revision of the genus Lichtwardtia Enderlein in Southeast Asia, a tale of highly diverse male terminalia (Diptera, Dolichopodidae), ZooKeys 798, pp. 63-107 : 63

Lichtwardtia semakau Grootaert & Tang sp. n. Figs 8, 9

Material examined.

Holotype male (coll. LKCNHM): SINGAPORE: Semakau, back mangrove in the old mangrove (1°12'19.9"N, 103°45'34.1"E), 3 April 2012, sweep netting along path (leg. P Grootaert). Paratype (coll. LKCNHM): 1 female, same provenance as holotype.

Diagnosis.

Antenna entirely dark yellow. Arista-like stylus feathered. Wing clear, faintly brownish tinged. No thickening of the costa where R1 joins the costa. Fore and hind coxae entirely yellow. Mid coxa with a rectangular brown spot anteriorly, posteriorly pale brownish. Cercus yellow, brownish seamed with margin distinctly digitated and bearing five thickened marginal bristles near the tip. Hypandrium simple, lacking protuberances. Phallus ventrally with at least twelve black denticles.

Description.

Male.Body length 3.9 mm, wing 3.5 × 1.2 mm. Head dark metallic green, with thick pale pollinosity; face slightly raised, frons and face both with thick pale pollinosity, gradually narrowed downward. Hairs and bristles on head black but lower postocular hairs pale. Antenna dark yellow (Figure 21); postpedicel nearly triangular, blunt apically, 1.2 times as long as wide; arista-like stylus black, nearly as long as width of head, feather-like, with long pubescence, basal portion 0.3 times as long as apical portion. Proboscis dark yellow, with black hairs; palpus dark yellow, with a short black apical bristle.

Thorax dark green, with pale grey pollinosity. Hairs and bristles on thorax black; five strong dc, ten pairs of long acr. Scutellum with two pairs sc, apical pair long strong, basal pair short and weak. Legs mainly yellow, but mid coxa with a dark brown rectangular spot anteriorly and a pale brown posteriorly. Fore and mid coxae anteriorly with rows of bristle-like hairs, fore and mid coxae anteriorly with three long strong preapical bristles and rows of anterior bristles, mid coxa with one outer bristles at apical third, hind coxa with two outer bristles, basal one strong, apical one relatively weak. Mid trochanter with two ap dorsally. Hind trochanter with one outer bristle at middle. Fore femur with one strong pv at middle. Mid femur with one strong pd and one preapical pv. Hind femur with one strong pd at apical quarter. Fore tibia with one ad, three pd, one av and three ap. Mid tibia with two ad, three pd, one pv and four ap. Hind tibia with three ad, three pd (one preapical), two weak pv and three ap. Fore tarsomere I with one short av at base. Hind tarsomere I with one strong ad at middle and two short apical bristle. Relative lengths of tibia and five tarsomeres of legs LI: 7.0: 3.2: 1.2: 1.2: 1.0: 1.0; LII: 6.0: 4.0:?:?:?:? (mid tarsus partly lost); LIII: 10.4: 4.0:?:?:?:?. Wing nearly hyaline, nearly pale; veins brown. No thickening of the costa where R1 joins the costa. M with fading M2, M1 with one short subvein. Crossvein dm-cu straight. CuAx ratio 1.2. Lower calypter pale with black hairs. Haltere pale.

Abdomen metallic green, with pale pollinosity. Hairs and bristles on abdomen black.

Male terminalia (Figure 9): Epandrium 1.8 times longer than wide; ventral epandrial margin at the level of the reduced epandrial lobe with three long pale bristles (Figure 9D), and with a small basoventral bristle. Ventral surstylus and dorsal surstylus both with five short nail-like ap. Cercus nearly triangular, pale except the black margin, with distinct digitations around outer margin, bearing strong black marginal bristles. On the inside a single strong bristle near the dorsal margin, with two relatively strong blade-like bristles on digitations at apical half. Hypandrium simple. Phallus with black small dense irregular denticles on ventral half (Figure 9A).

Female. Body length 4.3 mm, wing 3.4 × 1.3 mm. Resembling the male except for the terminalia and face wider.

Etymology.

The name refers to the type locality Semakau, an island on the southern coast of Singapore.

Comments.

L. semakau sp. n. resembles very much L. dentalis Zhang et al. 2009 described from the Yunnan province (China). It differs in that L. dentalis has a broadening of the costa at the level where the R1 joins the costa ( Zhang et al. 2009, Figure 1). L. semakau sp. n. has no swelling at all of the costa. The outer margin of the cercus seems more weakly digitated with only a strong marginal bristle dorsally and one on the tip. In L. semakau sp. n., the margin of the cercus is more deeply indented and there are five broad black marginal bristles at the tip of the cercus.

L. semakau sp. n. should be compared also to L. cambodiensis sp. n. that differs in the male also by a thickening of a costa and the marginal bristles on the cercus that are all thin and paler.

Distribution.

Singapore.