<Unknown Taxon>

Colless, Donald H., 2012, The Froggattimyia-Anagonia Genus Group (Diptera: Tachinidae), Records of the Australian Museum 64 (3), pp. 167-211 : 182-183

Froggattimyia hirta Townsend

Figs 20–22

Froggattimyia hirta Townsend, 1916:155.

Type. Holotype male in USNM, no. 19973, Mittagong, NSW.

For descriptive purposes I recognize 2 kinds of male: the dark form, with femora dark on about the basal 50%, and the light form with femora entirely pale (or with at most a trace of darkening). With the exception of the terminalia, other characters vary considerably within these forms, but morphometric analyses reveal no significant differences between them. The NSW Dept of Agriculture has 3 specimens with label data indicating that they were reared from the same batch as the holotype (it seems that W. W. Froggatt sent only one pair to Townsend for description, keeping the rest in his collection). These belong to the dark form, as does the holotype (“femora of male blackish on base”: Townsend, 1916). I shall therefore describe that form first, and then the pale form.

Male— dark form. Differs from F. wentworthi principally as follows:

Head. fronto-orbital plate pale to mid brown dorsally. Reclinate upper orbital bristles strongly differentiated. Parafacial setulose to about level of vibrissa, setulae dark, rather small and sparse. Gena with setulae usually all dark but occasionally with extensive area of pale ones anteriorly.

Thorax. Postpronotal lobe with distinctive pale brown ground colour; notopleural (usually), supra-alar, postalar, and presutural areas likewise, forming an irregular pale brown margin to the mesoscutum; scutellum also pale brown. Mesoscutum often with at least a trace of a presutural median dark vitta. Scutellum with apical bristles usually lacking or vestigial, or (rarely) developed but small. Pleuron generally dark, but often a little paler dorsally across katepisternum and posterodorsally on anepisternum; silver-grey pollen very thin and inconspicuous. Proepisternal setulae pale and postpronotum with some fine pale hairs towards ventral margin; otherwise, pleural hairs and setulae usually all dark, but sometimes with “crinkly-tipped”, pale brown hairs posteriorly on anepisternum, dorsally on katepisternum, and over katepimeron and anepimeron. Meropleural bristles all dark in main row, but sometimes a few of the secondary ones pale.

Legs. Coxae at least partly darkened. All femora with basal 40–60% dark. Foretibia with 0–1 p seta. Midfemur without stout spine(s) at centre of anterior surface. Midfemur usually with 1–2 smaller ad bristles basad to the subcentral one.

Abdomen. Setae and setulae on tergites and sternites all dark. Syntergite 1+2 and tergite 3 almost always without differentiated submedian bristles. tergites 3 and 4 with ground colour broadly pale laterally, syntergite 1+2 and tergite 5 narrowly pale laterally, leaving a dark vitta on about ¼– 1 ⁄ 3 width of tergites; pollinosity mostly silvery to pale golden, often slightly darker on a pair of submedian triangles on tergite 3, dark median vitta on tergite 3 (and sometimes tergite 4) usually enclosed in a posteriorly directed, somewhat lighter triangle.

Terminalia (Figs 20–22). In lateral view surstyli and cerci relatively stout and tapering, but surstyli sometimes more digitate; in posterior view cerci apposed basally, broadly diverging and then converging again apically. Cerci with very characteristic, extremely profuse, moderately long hairs over posteromedial surfaces. Pregonite more extensively haired than is usual in other species.

Male— pale form. As for the dark form, differing principally as follows:

Head. Genal setulae usually mainly pale, sometimes completely so. First flagellomere often with dark area reduced (greatly so in W.A. specimens).

Thorax. Pale markings of mesoscutum and scutellum usually more conspicuous, bright yellow in very pale specimens. Pleuron with pale areas more strongly developed, in very pale specimens anepisternum and anepimeron mostly pale and pale areas present on pleurotergite and mediotergite. Pleural fine hairs and setulae mostly pale.

Legs. Coxae all or almost all pale; femora pale or (in several rather intermediate specimens) with a trace of dark basal marking.

Abdomen. Lateral pale areas of tergites rather larger; median dark non- pollinose vittae often lacking. Specimens reared from Lophyrotoma analis (Costa) feeding on Rumex brownii, all with well-developed pair of submedian marginals on tergite 3, and often on syntergite 1+2.

Female. Specimens collected along with both “pale” and “dark” males, and presumably conspecific with them, vary in colour but show no clear differentiation into distinct forms. Generally similar to the male, most colour patterns comprising the full range shown by pale- and dark forms combined, but differing as follows:

Genal setulae usually all pale; parafacial setulae very fine, pale, and inconspicuous on more ventral parts. Mesoscutum usually lacking the presutural median vitta. Coxae and femora all pale; midfemur with usual central cluster of 2–3 spines on anterior surface. Abdomen darker, lateral pale areas scarcely visible from above on tergite 3, not at all on other tergites. Median non-pollinose vitta often missing (abdominal pattern seemingly more variable than in male). Specimens from Lophyrotoma analis as for males.

Distribution. All states except NT and SA, but no doubt occurring also in the latter.

Biology. All reared specimens came from larvae of pergid sawflies; more definite identifications are Perga affinis, P. dorsalis, Pergagrapta polita, Pterygophorus cinctus, Lophyrotoma analis and Lophyrotoma sp. The last genus seems especially favoured by the pale form. It is perhaps noteworthy that only F. hirta and the related F. coracina have been recorded from the last 2 genera.

Notes. The above division into pale- and dark forms, based on leg colour, serves for convenience of description and recognition, but is to a large extent artificial: occasional intermediates do occur. However, male terminalia seem quite uniform and certainly no more variable than in other species, and females, although varying in colour pattern, do not cluster into distinct forms. There is a degree of geographic

separation between the two: the pale form is recorded from Queensland to Western Australia and represented in the latter state by some extremely pale specimens; the dark form is found mainly in Queensland and New South Wales and not recorded from Victoria or Western Australia. This might be the result of parasitising different host species or a single host that feeds on different plants. Leg colour is known to vary markedly in some other species (see F. aurea above).

There is also the perplexing series of the pale form reared from Lophyrotoma sp. feeding on the dock Rumex brownii near Brisbane (see above). Of 18 males and 6 females, all had well-developed submedian marginals on abdominal tergite 3, a condition rarely seen elsewhere. It could be that these represent a distinct, highly specialized species, but I find it more credible that larval development in a most unusual milieu is responsible. All in all, then, it seems best to recognize here just a single, variable species.

The holotype was noted by Malloch (1934) to be in very poor condition, but I have drawings of the male terminalia (kindly supplied by the late Dr C. Sabrosky). These, together with Townsend’s original (1916) description and Malloch’s (1934) notes leave no doubt that the species is here correctly identified. The female “type”, however, as noted by Malloch (1934), is not conspecific (it is, in fact, a species of Anagonia). Also, the specimens from Roma, identified by Malloch (1934) as hirta, belong in fact to the related F. coracina sp. nov. (see below).