Quichuana inca, BREVICERA HULL, 1946: 7

Ricarte, Antonio, Marcos-García, M. Ángeles, Hancock, E. G. & Rotheray, Graham E., 2012, Revision of the New World genus Quichuana Knab, 1913 (Diptera: Syrphidae), including descriptions of 24 new species, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (Zool. J. Linn. Soc.) 166 (1), pp. 72-131 : 83

QUICHUANA INCA BREVICERA HULL, 1946: 7 ( AS A VARIETY)

The taxon brevicera was originally described as a variety of Quichuana inca based on two males from Colombia ( Hull, 1946). We examined one of these specimens labelled as follows: syntype / Colombia, Atrata Valley, Boca de Arquia, V-VI-1914/Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research/ Holotype Quichuana inca Shan. v. brevicera Hull (handwritten) (NHM). Differences between Q. inca and Q. inca brevicera are more than sufficient to consider them as separate species. As the name brevicera is available, the status of this taxon is raised here to full species.

Diagnostic features

Male

Head: Eye hairs pale; vertical triangle shiny black, only pollinose on the anterior corner; ocellar triangle with long black hairs; frontal triangle shiny black, with an inconspicuous dome on the upper half; frontal triangle with long, anteriorly directed, black hairs on the upper half, shorter, anteriorly directed, black hairs on the lower half, and with a line of pale hairs on the eye margins (the line of hairs does not reach the upper corner of the frontal triangle); black antenna, with thinly pollinose basoflagellomere; bf = 1.8; basoflagellomere elongate; black face, with a central shiny stripe not reaching the antennae and two wide lateral shiny stripes, with the rest of the face pollinose.

Thorax: Black scutum with posteriorly directed pale hairs; pleuron pale haired, without conspicuous tufts of hairs; anterior and posterior spiracles pale in colour; scutellum with pale hairs, longer on the posterior margin; legs black, except for the red apex of the femora (red area larger on metafemur), full tibiae, and tarsi; legs with pale hairs except for the apicodorsal area of the femora bearing short, black, adpressed hairs (the black hairs cover a larger area on the metafemur), and the apical third of the metafemur ventrally bearing spiny black hairs; wings extensively microtrichose, except for the cells BM and CuP, with large bare areas; wings lightly brown pigmented anteriorly.

Abdomen: Black, extensively pale haired, with hairs on the lateral margins of terga II–IV longer than those positioned centrally on these terga (hairs on the lateral margins straight and with the maximum length on tergum I posteriorly and tergum II anteriorly); tergum I with a moustache arrangement of silver white hairs; terga II–III with a very narrow, white pollinose band on the posterior margin; sterna with long white hairs.

Female

Unknown.

Material examined

Holotype: See data above.

Range

Colombia.

Taxonomic notes

Small species (9 mm) with slender abdomen; Q. brevicera can be separated from most Quichuana species by the presence of a band of pollinosity on the posterior margin of terga II–III; this pollinose band is also present in the similar Q. inca , but Q. brevicera has the hump on the frontal triangle more gently protruded, and shorter basoflagellomere (bf = 3 in Q. inca ); additionally, the medial pollinose stripes on the scutum are more faint than those in Q. inca , and do not extend beyond the TS; however, the most obvious character separating Q. brevicera and Q. inca is the shape of the abdomen, with lateral margins parallel in Q. brevicera and curved in Q. inca ( Fig. 81 ).

Figures

Figures 80–83. Overall appearance of different Quichuana species, dorsal view. 80, Quichuana cincta, female from Mexico; scale bar = 2 mm. 81, Quichuana inca, male holotype; scale bar = 1 mm. 82, Quichuana parisii, female paralectotype, scale bar = 1 mm. 83, Quichuana undulatipila sp. nov., female paratype; scale bar = 2 mm.