Tephritis Latreille

Khaghaninia, Samad, Zarghani, Ebrahim, Namin, Saeed Mohamadzade & Korneyev, Valery A., 2011, A new species of Te ph rit is Latreille (Diptera: Tephritidae) with an unusual wing pattern from Iran and its taxonomic implications, Zootaxa 3047, pp. 54-62 : 55

Tephritis Latreille

Tephritis Latreille 1804 (type species Musca arnicae Linnaeus 1758 by subsequent designation of Cresson 1914) Acrorellia Wang 1990 (type species Acrorellia sinica Wang 1990 , by original designation). Synonymized by Merz & Freidberg 1994.

Pangasella Richter 1995 (type species Pangasella volkovitshi Richter 1995 , by original designation). New synonymy.

The genus Tephritis belongs to the so-called Tephritis group of genera along with Acanthiophilus Rondani , Trupanea Scrank , and many other genera distributed mainly in the Palaearctic and Afrotropical Regions, with some genera occurring also in other zoogeographic regions ( Merz 2000). It can be recognized from a reticulate wing pattern with the hyaline spots on brown or grey background, with 2–3 large hyaline spots in the cell r1 and a large apical hyaline spot at apex of the cell r4+5 separating a pair of dark rays bifurcating towards apices of the veins R4+5 and M (see Merz 1994: Figs. 51–53, Merz 2000: Fig. 24.7A, and Korneyev & Ovchinnikova 2004: Figs. 304–306); additional characters important for recognition of this genus from other Tephritini genera, are usually white posterior notopleural seta (black in the type species of the genus, T. arnicae (Linnaeus 1758) and a few other species), capitate proboscis, 2 frontal setae, 4 scutellar setae, a poorly sclerotized or entirely membranous glans of the phallus (without tubular structures of acrophallus of spinulose internal structures), and two moderately or strongly elongate spermathecae turned at 25–35º angle to their non-scerotized ducts and with their apices directed posteriorly.

A few species of Tephritis are already known to have the wing pattern without apical fork and with tendency to fusion of hyaline and dark elements forming more or less conspicuous crossbands, e.g., T. angulatofasciata Portschinsky 1892 , T. admissa Hering 1961 and T. sinica (Wang 1990) , see Wang (1998). The latter species was described in the genus Acrorellia Wang, 1990 , which has been later synonymized with Tephritis by Merz & Freidberg (1994).