Tomosvaryella pistacia Majnon-Jahromi & Kehlmaier

Majnon-Jahromi, Bahareh, Gheibi, Mehdi, Fallahzadeh, Majid, Kehlmaier, Christian & Hesami, Shahram, 2017, Pipunculidae (Diptera) from southern Iran, including two new species of the genus Tomosvaryella Aczél, Zootaxa 4273 (4), pp. 488-500 : 497-498

Tomosvaryella pistacia Majnon-Jahromi & Kehlmaier sp. nov.

Figs 15–18

Type material. HOLOTYPE: 1♂ (DNA CK828, LT671788 ), loc. 6, 29.vi–11.vii.2015 (SMTD).

Description. MALE. Body length 3.1 mm; wing length 3.5 mm; eyes meeting for a distance slightly longer than the length of ocellar triangle, i.e., for approximately six ommatidia; pedicellus with two minute bristles dorsally and one ventrally; flagellum pointed, dark brown; thorax dark brown except for the yellow postpronotal lobe; dorsal bristles of thorax hardly discernible, black; wing membrane with a very faint brownish tinge; wing membrane covered in microtrichia except for the base, including the anal lobe basally; third costal segment 1/3 the length of fourth costal segment; crossvein r-m reaching cell dm very shortly after the middle; crossvein bm-cu interrupted right before reaching cell br on both wings; halter with dark base, whitish stem and light brown knob; leg dark brown except for the narrowly yellow apex of femora, basal 1/3 and apex of tibia and tarsal segments except distitarsus; hind trochanter ventrally smooth, without spines or projection; fore femora with posteroventral row of minute black spines in apical half; mid femora with antero- and posteroventral row of minute black spines for more than apical half; hind femora with anteroventral row of minute black spines in apical half; pulvilli as long as distitarsus; abdomen dark brown; tergite 1 with a lateral patch of about ten short black setae on each side, slightly shorter than the width of tarsal segments; dorsal setae of abdomen black, hardly discernible; sclerites dark brown, apparently evenly sclerotised; genitalia, in dorsal view, with short epandrium, broader than long, with a narrow longitudinal stripe of distinctly weaker sclerotisation centrally and, therefore, apparently divided at first sight; surstyli almost symmetrical, gradually tapering towards apices, which are slightly knobbed; left surstylus slightly protruding the right one; membrane of syntergosternite 8 large, almost reaching epandrium, caudally occupying half of syntergosternite 8; in lateral view, apical half of surstyli bent towards venter by almost 90° (see inner margin); phallus trifid, largely retracted and thus hard to discern even under at a very high magnification; all ejaculatory ducts of different length (although this difference in length might be due to the fact that some ducts were partly torn off), the longest one upright, wavy and with a small membranous nose towards apex. FEMALE. Unknown.

Differential diagnosis. Tomosvaryella pistacia sp. nov. stands morphologically similar to T. angulata sp. nov., but the male of the first one does not have such a strongly-curved and distally-knobbed surstyli. Although the membranous area of the syntergosternite 8 is clearly larger in T. pistacia sp. nov., to separate the syntergosternite 8 from the abdomen is crucial in order to differentiate the two species with certainty. Both species share a small epandrium that seems to be less sclerotised dorsally, at its narrowest point (before the anal opening); this feature is apparently more developed in T. pistacia sp. nov., judging from the holotype. The small-sized epandrium puts these two species in a close relation to the Afrotropical T. congoana Hardy , known from the Comores Archipelago, South Africa, Zaïre and Zambia (redescribed and illustrated by De Meyer 1993). Tomosvaryella congoana also shares a similarly-shaped phallus and female ovipositor; the female ovipositor, however, has two protuberances at its ventral base, instead of one protuberance, as in T. angulata sp. nov.

Etymology. The species is named pistacia (Latin for pistachio) as it was collected in a pistachio plantation.

Figures

FIGURES 15 – 18. Holotype of Tomosvaryella pistacia Majnon-Jahromi & Kehlmaier sp. nov. (DNA CK 828). 15 — right surstylus and phallus, lateral view; 16 — syntergosternite 8, epandrium and surstyli, dorsal view; 17 — left surstylus, lateral view; 18 — phallus, ventral view. Scale bars = 0.1 mm.