Thitena, Munari, 2004

Munari, L., 2004, Beach Flies (Diptera: Tethinidae: Tethininae) From Australia and Papua New Guinea, with Descriptions of Two New Genera and Ten New Species, Records of the Australian Museum 56 (1), pp. 29-56 : 55

Genus Thitena n.gen.

Thitena n.gen. (described in the present work). Type species: Thitena cadaverina n.sp. cadaverina n.sp. Distribution: Australia (WA). Thitena cadaverina n.sp. (described in the present work) [Western Australia: Barrow Island, on dead Turnstone; HT 3, AM K186744; figures of habitus, scutellum, and 3 terminalia].

Conclusions

Even though restricted to the subfamily Tethininae , I hope that this study, together with an earlier paper on the beach flies from the southwestern coast of Australia (Munari, 2000), lays the foundations for further research. This study suggests that Tethina is much less diverse in species than Dasyrhicnoessa . Tethina species mainly inhabit maritime sandy beaches, that are, in some localities, subject to anthropogenic effects related to leisure and industry. Conversely, Dasyrhicnoessa species mainly occur in inhospitable environments such as mangrove forests around lagoons and inland bodies of water, or impenetrable littoral belts. These two particular littoral ecosystems have produced in the past, differing speciation rates within these two genera. It appears that the genus Tethina is poorly represented in Australia whereas the pan-tropical Dasyrhicnoessa has many species awaiting discovery. A similar situation exists with the better known Afrotropical fauna where the endemic Afrotethina is far more numerous than Tethina .

The data on the beach flies of Papua New Guinea are too scant to allow a fair assessment of its fauna. Possibly the Tethinidae of Papua New Guinea are more similar to the fauna of Malaysia and Melanesia.

With regard to Australia, our knowledge contains a huge gap as little is known about the Tethinidae of Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. An indication of this may be the fact that two new genera and three new species from WesternAustralia, including Thitena cadaverina described here, have been found from scanty material, fruit of quite occasional dipterological collections.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. I thank Drs D. Bickel, D.K. McAlpine, S.F. McEvey, and M. Moulds at the Australian Museum, Sydney, for allowing me to study the material preserved in the museum’s collection, and for valuable editorial suggestions. Special thanks are also due to Dr E. Ratti and Mrs G. D’Este (Venice, Italy) for the kind permission to publish some illustrations which were skillfully drawn by the latter, as well as to Dr M. Daccordi (Turin, Italy) for his help in supplying me with some literature data. A loving sign of gratitude goes to my son Emiliano for converting the original illustrations in a digital format. Heartfelt thanks also go to Dr M.J. Ebejer (Cowbridge, Great Britain) who patiently reviewed the manuscript and improved the English language.