Lysistrata Grimaldi & Arillo

Grimaldi, David A., Arillo, Antonio, Cumming, Jeffrey M. & Hauser, Martin, 2011, Brachyceran Diptera (Insecta) in Cretaceous ambers, Part IV, Significant New Orthorrhaphous Taxa, ZooKeys 148, pp. 293-332 : 294-295

Lysistrata Grimaldi & Arillo gen. n.

Diagnosis.

Antennal flagellum submoniliform, with approximately 7 short flagellomeres tapered in width apicad; articulation between basal 3 flagellomeres faint. Protibia lacking spurs; mesotibia with two short apical spurs (c. 50 µm length). Metatibia probably with one pair of short apical spurs. Vein Rs branches from R1 in the distal third of vein R. Stem of R4+5 straight, R4 curved basally, long and subparallel to R5. Cell d long and narrow, length approximately 3.5x the width; cell m3 absent.

Type species.

Lysistrata emerita , sp. n., by present designation.

Etymology.

From the Greek, Λυσιστράτη, meaning "army disbander", after the comedy by Aristophanes and in reference to the common name for Stratiomyidae , or "soldier flies". Feminine.

Discussion.

Lysistrata is clearly within the Stratiomyomorpha , and appears closely allied with Stratiomyidae on the basis of the radial branching. The presence of two minute spurs on the mesotibia, and probably a short pair on the metatibia is indicative of either Stratiomyidae or Xylomyidae . A few Recent stratiomyids have a minute apical spur on the mesotibia, whereas xylomyids have either a 0 –2– 2 or 0 –2– 1 tibial spur formula. Pantophthalmids have one or two spurs on the mesotibia only, but are distinct from the other two families by the longer branches of R1 and Rs.

The Recent and primitive genus Parhadrestia James (consisting of two species from Chile) shares some similarities with Lysistrata , both of them possessing a long R4 vein curved only at the base and with the main branch only slightly divergent from R5. The genus Montsecia Mostovski, 1999, preserved as a compression in Early Cretaceous (Barremian) limestone of Montsec, Lérida Province, Spain (originally and incorrectly placed in the subfamily Beridinae ) also has the fork of R4+R5 quite long. This long fork may be a plesiomorphic feature, seen for example in Rhagionidae and Spaniidae .

Lysistrata differs plesiomorphically from Parhadrestia by the following: antenna multiarticulate; wing longer, narrower; R2+3 slightly longer and gradually sloped to C; apex of R2+3 not close to the apex of R1; R5 and M1 slightly divergent instead of parallel; M1, M2, and CuA1 not as divergent (a condition shared with Montsecia ); cell d much longer, its length approximately 3 × the width (vs. 2 × the width in Montsecia and 1.5 × the width in Parhadrestia ; in most Recent stratiomyids cell d is quite small); CuA2 more sloped toward CuP (e.g., apex of cell cup acute, instead of truncate [similar to Montsecia ], although an acute cell cup is considered apomorphic by Woodley [2001]). In Montsecia the base of M is weak, whereas it is well developed in Lysistrata . Lysistrata has two apomorphic features: small female abdominal segments 6 and 7, which telescope within the proximal ones (in the basal Recent subfamilies Parhadrestiinae , Chiromyzinae and Beridinae segments 6 and 7 are large [ Woodley 2001]); also, vein M3 is lost. Loss of this vein occurs in all Parhadrestiinae and Pachygastrinae , and is frequently absent in Chiromyzinae and Beridinae ( Woodley 2001). Absence of M3 may actually be a ground-plan feature of Stratiomyidae .

The oldest fossil stratiomyiid is Montsecia martinezdelclosi Mostovski (1999), from the same outcrop that yielded several larvae believed to be stratiomyiids ( Whalley and Jarzembowski 1985). According to Mostovski (1999), several undescribed stratiomyiids are known from Jurassic and Cretaceous outcrops of Kazakhstan and Russia, although none has as yet been described. Gigantoberis liaoningensis , described as a stratiomyiid by Huang and Lin (2007) from the Early Cretaceous of Lianoning, China, was shown by Zhang (2009) not to belong to this family, which Huang acknowledges (pers. comm. to AA, 2010). The only other Cretaceous stratiomyiids are Cretaceogaster pygmaeus ( Teskey 1971; Grimaldi and Cumming 1999; herein vide supra), an incomplete and undescribed species in Turonian-aged amber from New Jersey USA ( Grimaldi and Cumming 1999), and the very well-preserved Lysistrata emerita , described below and which is very basal in the family. Diverse stratiomyiids belonging to modern subfamilies and genera, including undescribed species, occur in shales and amber from the Tertiary and were summarized in Evenhuis (1994).