Homalocnemis Philippi, 1865

Rafael, José A., Marques, Dayse W. A., González, Christian R. & Sinclair, Bradley J., 2022, Review of Homalocnemidae of Chile with a key to species and descriptions of male and female terminalia (Diptera: Empidoidea), Zootaxa 5222 (2), pp. 168-178 : 169-170

Genus Homalocnemis Philippi, 1865

Homalocnemis Philippi, 1865: 752 .

Type-species: Homalocnemis nigripennis Philippi (mon.).

Fraudator Hutton, 1901: 23 .

Type-species: Fraudator perspicuus Hutton, 1901 (mon.).

References. Reed, 1888: 301 (cat.); Bigot, 1889: 121 (refs.); Bezzi, 1909: 301 (in key); Kertész, 1909: 8 (cat.); Melander, 1928: 12 (in key), 14 (redes.), pl. 5, fig. 41; Collin, 1928: 2 (list), 3 (in key), 54–55 (classif., syn.); Collin, 1933: 8 (in key), 27 (com.), 28–29 (redes.); Stuardo, 1946: 104 (cat.); Smith, 1967: 9 (cat.); Chvála, 1983: 10 (classif.), 19, 21, 25, 33, 35, 47, 70, 87 (com.); Smith, 1989: 388 (cat.); Chvála, 1991: 13, 17 (com.); Sinclair, 1995: 720 (tax.); Sinclair, 1999: 131, 141 (com.); Sabrosky, 1999: 24, 159 (cat., Diptera family group names); Sinclair & Cumming, 2006: 4 (com.), 9 (dist.); 22 (com.), 25, 26, 49, 61, 62, (phy.), 64 (biol.), 68 (com.), 72 (classif.), 82 (in key); Yang et al., 2007: 280 (cat.); Kirk-Spriggs & Stuckenberg, 2009: 160, 179 (com., fig. 6.2); Marshall, 2012: 231 (com.); Kirk-Spriggs & Muller, 2017: 207 (com.); Sinclair (2017a): 1261 (tax.); Wahlberg & Johanson, 2018: 3, 6 (phy.); González & Llanos, 2019: 121 (list).

Diagnosis. Medium-sized flies (wing length 5-8.5 mm); darkish in colour; head large, wider than height, narrower than thorax; compound eye large, encompassing entire lateral surface of head; males and females with eyes closely approximated on frons for long distance, upper facets enlarged; ocellar triangle prominent, elevated above eyes; antenna with postpedicel elongate; stylus elongate, cylindrical, not tapered, comprised of 2 articles, bearing apical peg-like receptor; proboscis thick, tubular, projecting horizontally slightly beyond head; labrum lacking epipharyngeal blades; palpus arched, closely appressed to concave face; thorax distinctly humped; wing elongate, with costal vein circumambient; vein R 4+5 branched; vein M 1 sinuous; cell cua longer than basal cells br and bm, with lower angle acute; mid femur swollen, raptorial with geniculate tibia; male terminalia unrotated; phallus either articulated with hypandrium, fused to apex of hypandrium, or enclosed by the hypandrium; female terminalia without acanthophorites; single spermatheca oval, darkly pigmented ( Sinclair 2017a).

Remarks. Internal details of the terminalia of the Chilean species of Homalocnemis have not been previously presented and here we add figures for both sexes. The terminalia are unique on the basis of the position of the phallus in association with the hypandrium (as presented under “Discussion” below) and support the distinctiveness of Homalocnemidae as an independent lineage within Empidoidea