Megaselia shadeae Hartop

Hartop, Emily A. & Brown, Brian V., 2014, The tip of the iceberg: a distinctive new spotted-wing Megaselia species (Diptera: Phoridae) from a tropical cloud forest survey and a new, streamlined method for Megaselia descriptions, Biodiversity Data Journal 2, pp. 4093-4093 : 4093

Megaselia shadeae Hartop sp. n.

Materials

Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: 322007 ; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificName: Megaseliashadeae Hartop 2014; Location: country: Costa Rica; stateProvince: San Jose; locality: Zurqui de Moravia ; verbatimElevation: 1600 m; verbatimCoordinates: 10.05°N, 84.01°W; decimalLatitude: 10.05; decimalLongitude: -84.01; georeferenceProtocol: GPS; Identification: identifiedBy: Brian Brown; dateIdentified: 2014; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap #1; eventDate: 2013-06-14/21; Record Level: institutionCode: LACM; collectionCode: ENT; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: 322008 ; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificName: Megaseliashadeae Hartop 2014; Location: country: Costa Rica; stateProvince: San Jose; locality: Zurqui de Moravia ; verbatimElevation: 1600 m; verbatimCoordinates: 10.05°N, 84.01°W; decimalLatitude: 10.05; decimalLongitude: -84.01; georeferenceProtocol: GPS; Identification: identifiedBy: Brian Brown; dateIdentified: 2014; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap #1; eventDate: 2013-06-14/21; Record Level: institutionCode: LACM; collectionCode: ENT; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: 275333 ; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificName: Megaseliashadeae Hartop 2014; Location: country: Costa Rica; stateProvince: San Jose; locality: Zurqui de Moravia ; verbatimElevation: 1600 m; verbatimCoordinates: 10.05°N, 84.01°W; decimalLatitude: 10.05; decimalLongitude: -84.01; georeferenceProtocol: GPS; Identification: identifiedBy: Brian Brown; dateIdentified: 2014; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap #1; eventDate: 2012-09-12/18; Record Level: institutionCode: LACM; collectionCode: ENT; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: 275324 ; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificName: Megaseliashadeae Hartop 2014; Location: country: Costa Rica; stateProvince: San Jose; locality: Zurqui de Moravia ; verbatimElevation: 1600 m; verbatimCoordinates: 10.05°N, 84.01°W; decimalLatitude: 10.05; decimalLongitude: -84.01; georeferenceProtocol: GPS; Identification: identifiedBy: Brian Brown; dateIdentified: 2014; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap #1; eventDate: 2012-09-12/19; Record Level: institutionCode: LACM; collectionCode: ENT; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: 326547 ; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificName: Megaseliashadeae Hartop 2014; Location: country: Costa Rica; stateProvince: San Jose; locality: Zurqui de Moravia ; verbatimElevation: 1600 m; verbatimCoordinates: 10.05°N, 84.01°W; decimalLatitude: 10.05; decimalLongitude: -84.01; georeferenceProtocol: GPS; Identification: identifiedBy: Brian Brown; dateIdentified: 2014; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap #1; eventDate: 2012-09-12/20; Record Level: institutionCode: LACM; collectionCode: ENT; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Description

See Table 2, Figs 2, 3, 4, 5.

Diagnosis

Wing with darkly-pigmented central swelling in center. Fork formed by wing veins R2+3 and R4+5 greatly enlarged. The central wing spot makes this different from all other described Neotropical species with the single exception of M. dicksoni ( Wakeford and Disney 1994), from which it differs in having a bubbled and pigmented, rather than a scaled, wing spot.

Etymology

Named for E. A. Hartop's niece, Shade Zehendner.

Distribution

Known from a single site in Costa Rica.

Biology

Unknown.

Taxon discussion

A primary key to Neotropical species of Megaselia was given by Borgmeier (1962), who supplemented his original key with two additional keys to Neotropical species ( Borgmeier 1969a, Borgmeier 1971), and a key to Dominican species ( Borgmeier 1969b). In Borgmeier (1962), this species keys to couplet 62 of the group VII key where it differs immediately from both M. notipennis and M. phoebe by the presence of a wing spot.

Neotropical species of Megaselia described subsequent to Borgmeier’s keys are given by Boesi et al. (2006), Brown and Horan (2011), Kung and Brown (2004), Disney (1982), Disney (1989), Disney (1995), Disney and Berghoff (2007), Disney and Rettenmeyer (2007), Disney and Rettenmeyer (2010), Disney and Sakai (2001), Disney and Sinclair (2008), Disney and Weinmann (1998), Downie et al. (1995), Gonzalez et al. (2002), Wakeford and Disney (1994), Weinmann and Disney (1997), and Woolf (1998). This species is easily distinguished from all of these described species except M. dicksoni ( Wakeford and Disney 1994) by the presence of a central wing spot. In practice, M. shadeae is differentiated easily from M. dicksoni by the composition of the characteristic wing spot. In M. shadeae , the wing spot is pigmented wing membrane, whereas in M. dicksoni the wing spot is composed of a patch of pigmented scales.

Three genera that have been synonymized (or partially synonymized) with Megaselia that contain Neotropical fauna are Pericyclocera Schmitz, Paraphiochaeta Malloch, and Plastophora Brues. The species herein described is easily distinguished from species once classified in these genera by presence of the wing spot.