Bryopharsos palpiculum Quate, 1996

Figs 1, 17–18

Bryopharsos palpiculum Quate, 1996: 41 . Type locality: Costa Rica, Heredia, Estación Biológica La Selva (INBio).

Diagnosis

Male

Eye bridge with five facet rows (Fig. 17A); wing 2.4 times as long as wide; ejaculatory apodeme subcircular in ventral view; gonocoxal apodeme with a spine-shaped projection; surstyli with four tenacula (Fig. 17C); aedeagus long and straight, narrowing at the apex (Fig. 17B). This species shares five face rows with B. paulistensis but they can be easily differentiated by the number of tenacula on the surstyli (four in B. palpiculum, one in B. paulistensis).

Female (adapted from Quate 1999)

Subgenital plate with slender constriction before small apical lobes, triangular in shape before constriction; membranous plate indistinct; genital chamber faint, without distinct structure, appears as a spherical structure partially divided apically (see Quate 1999: 434–435, fig. 7c).

Material examined

COSTA RICA – Heredia • 6 ♂♂; Puerto Viejo de Sarapaqui, Estación Biológica La Selva; 0.11862° N, 78.95802° E; alt. 50–100 m; 15 Dec. 1993; LACM, INBIO CRI001470484, INBIO CRI001470634, INBIO CRI001470595, INBIO CRI001470134, INBIO CRI001470343, INBIO CRI001470240 . ECUADOR – Pichincha • 1 ♂; Pedro Vicente Maldonado, near San Pancracio, roadway to Pachijal; 0.11862° N, 78.95805° E; alt. 770 m; 25–28 Jan. 2020; Isabel Kilian leg.; MECN, ZFMK-TIS-2628311 • 1 ♀; same data as for preceding; ZFMK, ZFMK-TIS-2629904 • 2 ♂♂; same data as for preceding; 0.1156° N, 78.9580° E; alt. 750 m; 1–9 Feb. 2022; ZFMK, ZFMK-TIS-2637073, ZFMK-TIS-2637080 • 1 ♂; MECN, ZFMK-TIS-2637071 .

NICARAGUA – Rio San Juan • 5 ♂♂ SE of San Carlos; 10.9666° N, 84.3333° E; alt. 30 m; 6–10 Feb. 2000; L.W. Quate leg.; Malaise trap; lowland rain forest; LACM LACM-ENT-279365, LACM-ENT-279366, LACM-ENT-279367, LACM-ENT-279368, LACM-ENT-279369 .

PANAMA – Canal Zone • 1 ♂; Barro Colorado Island; 9.1500° N, 79.8500° E; 11–18 Aug. 1993; J. Pickering leg.; LACM, LACM-ENT-279380 • 1 ♂; same collection data as for preceding; 28 Jul.–4Aug. 1993; LACM • 1 ♂; same data as for preceding; 31 Jan.–7 Feb. 1996; LACM, LACM-ENT-279374 • 1 ♂; same data as for preceding; 6–13 Oct. 1996; LACM, LACM-ENT-279373 • 1 ♂; same data as for preceding; 23–30 Oct. 1996; LACM, LACM-ENT-279372 • 1 ♂; same data as for preceding; 18–27 Dec. 1996; LACM, LACM-ENT-279370 • 1 ♂; same data as for preceding; 1996; LACM, LACM-ENT-279378. – Guna Yala (previously known as San Blas) • 1 ♂; Nusagandi Reserve; 9.3333° N, 79.0000° E; 12–19 Feb. 1994; J. Pickering leg; LACM, LACM-ENT-279377 • 3 ♂♂; same data as for preceding; 24 Jun.–4 Jul. 1993; LACM, LACM-ENT-279371; LACM-ENT-279379; LACM-ENT-279376 .

Redescription

Female

HEAD. About as long as wide, eye bridge contiguous with four facet rows; interocular suture absent; five enlarged post-ocular alveoli on each lateral margin; frontal patch of alveoli undivided, triangular with rounded vertices. Antennal scape about 1.5 times as long as the pedicel, cylindrical; pedicel spherical, shorter than scape; flagellomeres smaller than male flagellomeres, asymmetrical-podiform, apical flagellomeres missing in examined material; palpal segments cylindrical, apical palpal segment with pointed apex; palpal proportions: 1.0:1.2:1.2:1.5.

THORAX. Without allurement organs. Wing. 2.3 times as long as wide, wing membrane brown-hyaline, alveoli distributed uniformly on wing membrane; subcostal vein short ending beyond the origin of R 4; fork of R 2+3 at the same level as M 1+2 and joining R 4; fork of M 1+2 weak; R 5 ending at the wing apex; CuA 2 ending at wing margin. Tergite nine with apical lobes (Fig. 18A), broad and digitiform, about the same length as tergite nine; subgenital plate membranous except for apical lobes which are sclerotized, basal margin round, with a constriction before apical lobes; genital chamber membranous, barely visible; cerci short, about the same length as the subgenital plate.

EGG (Fig. 18B). Length 0.336 ± 0.020 mm. Width 0.14 ± 0.032 mm (n = 8). No exochorion sculptures where observed along the long axis of the egg. No aeropiles were observed in the posterior pole. The anterior pole presents a cylindrical projection of about 0.02 mm, with a truncated apex, without exochorion sculptures.

Distribution

Costa Rica, Panama (Quate 1996; Bravo & Araújo 2019), and Ecuador (this publication, new record) (Fig. 1).

DNA barcodes

Five specimens were successfully sequenced: ZFMK-TIS-2628311, ZFMK-TIS-2629904, ZFMK-TIS-2637071, ZFMK-TIS-2637073, ZFMK-TIS-2637080. The maximum intraspecific uncorrected pairwise distance for COI sequences was 1.07% or 7 bp.

Remarks

Quate (1996) originally described B. palpiculum based on male specimens. Later, he (Quate 1999) described the females collected in Nusagandi Reserve (Panama) appealing to the co-occurrence of these female specimens with males of B. palpiculum . These females were the first known and reported female specimens of Bryopharsos . The female description is relatively brief and the illustration only shows the genital chamber and the subgenital plate.

In this study, the association between the examined male and female specimens was done using the DNA barcodes (see section above). Our specimen differs from that on the drawings provided by Quate (1999), i.e., in specimen ZFMK-TIS-2637073 the paramere looks shorter than in Quate’s drawing while in specimen ZFMK-TIS-2637080, the paramere is strongly curved (although the shape/position likely changed during the mounting process). In specimen ZFMK-TIS-2637071, the base of the paramere looks broader than on Quate’s drawing, but the general morphology is similar. The variation can be explained by the angle in which the terminalia were prepared on the microscope slides, but when comparing with other specimens deposited in other collections there is no doubt they all belong to the same species.