Quichuana argentea, Ricarte & Marcos-García & Hancock & Rotheray, 2012

Ricarte, Antonio, Marcos-García, M. Ángeles, Hancock, E. G. & Rotheray, Graham E., 2012, Revision of the New World genus Quichuana Knab, 1913 (Diptera: Syrphidae), including descriptions of 24 new species, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (Zool. J. Linn. Soc.) 166 (1), pp. 72-131 : 77-78

QUICHUANA ARGENTEA RICARTE SP. NOV.

FIGURES 10 , 15 , AND 16

Description

Male

Head: Eye hairs straight and brown, slightly lighter and sparser on the lower half of eye; black vertical triangle, only pollinose on the anterior corner; ocellar triangle with long black hairs; frontal triangle black, with black hairs as long as those on the ocellar triangle and, at the eye margins, pale hairs; antenna dark; scape and pedicel with black hairs; basoflagellomere oval ( Fig. 10 ), brownish ventrobasally; bf = 1.1; ventral part of the frontal prominence brownish; black face, with long white hairs except for a central, bare, shiny stripe extending from Thorax: Black; scutum with two medial, grey pollinose stripes extending from the anterior margin to a point halfway between the TS and the posterior margin; pale haired mainly in front of TS and black haired behind (a few fine pale hairs near wing bases); PAPT, NP, and PC with tufts of white hairs; brown scutellum, black on the lateral corners; scutellum with intermixed long pale hairs and scattered shorter black hairs; femora, tibiae, and tarsi red; metafemur darkened dorsally, but not along the full length; metatibia with a dark central ring of about a third of tibia length; pro- and mesoleg with tarsomeres 3–4 darkened dorsally and pale ventrally, metaleg with tarsomere 5 also darkened dorsally; legs with both pale and black hairs on femora, tibiae, and tarsi; femora with scattered very long hairs; cells CuP, BM, R, DM and R 4+5 with bare or very sparsely microtrichose areas; wings light-brown, pigmented on about the anterior third (cell R 2+3 very lightly pigmented).

Abdomen: Terga II–IV each with two lateral red spots covering the full length of the lateral margins of terga II–III (spots faint on tergum IV); tergum I with a moustache arrangement of white hairs with a central gap of about a third of the tergum width; terga II–IV with pale hairs except for the posterior margin that has a band of black hairs: on tergum II the length of this band is about two-thirds of the tergum length; on tergum III the band is half of the tergum length and on tergum IV the band is very narrow.

Genitalia: Superior lobes in the shape of a straight stick, nearly as long as the rest of the hypandrium ( Fig. 15 ); epandrium with a massive surstyli, which, viewed in profile, is basally wider than high along the posterior margin ( Fig. 16 ).

Female (paratype)

Same as the male except black frons, with long black hairs centrally (the ones at the front anteriorly directed and the ones at the back erect or slightly posteriorly directed) and, on the eye margins, shorter white hairs; dorsal area of the frontal prominence shinier than the frons; surface of scutum posterior to TS more pale haired, and these pale hairs evenly distributed over all the surface; pollinose stripes on the scutum wider than those in the male; scutellum

78 A. RICARTE ET AL.

only with pale hairs; tarsomeres 3–4 lightly darkened dorsally; posterior margin of terga II–IV laterally fringed with conspicuous, adpressed, white hairs ( Fig. 77 ).

Etymology

The epithet ‘ argentea ’ refers to the silver colour of the body hairs.

Material examined

Holotype: 1m, 3.27.78, Monte Cristo , El Salvador, CA, d. r. barger (handwritten)/ USNM ENT 00036214 ( USNM).

Paratype: 1f, 4.25.77, ex Forest Monte Cristo , El Salvador, CA, Barger, det. as Quichuana fasciata by FCT ( USNM ENT 00036215 ) ( USNM) .

Range

El Salvador.

Taxonomic notes

Large species (13.4 mm, holotype) with broad abdomen; males can be separated from all other species by the shape of the superior lobes of genitalia, which are long and stick-like ( Fig. 15 ), and by the shape and size of surstyli ( Fig. 16 ); without an examination of genitalia, males of Q. argentea sp. nov. can be separated from males of the similar Q. salvadorensis sp. nov. by the pale colour of the body hairs, which are white in Q. argentea sp. nov. and golden yellow in Q. salvadorensis sp. nov.; females of Q. argentea sp. nov. can be distinguished from females of the similar Quichuana hermosa Hull, 1951 by the length of the pollinose stripes on the scutum, which end halfway between the TS and the posterior margin of the scutum in Q. argentea sp. nov. and reach, although faintly, the posterior margin of the scutum in Q. hermosa ; fore- and mesofemur are extensively red in Q. argentea sp. nov., whereas they are only red apically in Q. hermosa .

Figures

Figures 9–14. Quichuana right antennae, lateral inner view: 9, Quichuana boliviana sp. nov., female holotype; 10, Quichuana argentea sp. nov., female; 11, Quichuana fasciata, female lectotype; 12, Quichuana solitaria sp. nov., female holotype; 13, Quichuana tica sp. nov., female; 14, Quichuana communis sp. nov., male. Scale bars: 1 mm (top scale bar applies to Fig. 9 only).

Figures 15–16. Quichuana argentea sp. nov. male holotype genitalia, lateral view: 15, hypandrium; 16, epandrium. Scale bar: 1 mm.

Figures 73–79. Features of the ‘slender’ and ‘robust’ species of Quichuana. 73–76, ‘slender’ species. 73, Quichuana angustiventris, male from Trinidad with attached puparium, overall appearance, dorsal view; scale bar = 2 mm. 74, Quichuana calathea, male from Costa Rica, eye contiguity and vertical triangle; scale bar = 0.5 mm. 75–76, Quichuana picadoi, male: 75, anterior view; 76, lateral view; scale bar = 1 mm. 77–79, ‘robust’ species. 77, Quichuana fasciata, female lectotype, overall appearance, dorsal view; scale bar = 2 mm. 78, Quichuana dissimilis sp. nov., male holotype, eye contiguity and vertical triangle; scale bar = 1 mm. 79, Quichuana atra sp. nov., female, anterior view; scale bar = 1 mm.