Mucomyia Kvifte and Curler, 2018

Kvifte, Gunnar Mikalsen, Curler, Gregory R. & Marshall, Stephen A., 2018, Aquatic insects in the forest canopy: a new genus of moth flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) developing in slime on aerial roots, Journal of Natural History 52 (3 - 4), pp. 137-153 : 139

Mucomyia Kvifte and Curler , gen. nov.

Type species: Mucomyia emersa Kvifte and Curler , sp. nov., by present designation. Other included species: Mucomyia browni Kvifte , sp. nov.

Diagnosis

Adult male. Eyes with very dense row of supraocular setae, single row at eyebridge, several rows laterally; labellum bulbous, fleshy, diminutive; palp shorter than head length, with 4th palpomere fully sclerotized; antennae with 14 flagellomeres, flagellomeres 1–11 carrying one pair of Y-shaped ascoids and two or three pairs of additional smaller sensillae; distal three flagellomeres diminutive, not fused; wing membrane with setae; gonostylus without subapical bristle, gonocoxal condyles dorsally with wingshaped sclerites connected to the base of parameres and presumably the subepandrial plate; aedeagus of two phallomeres that either are separate and asymmetrical ( M. emersa ) or fused and symmetrical ( M. browni ); hypoproct oval, broad, with non-sclerotized fleshy lateral projections dorsal to bases of surstyli.

Pupa. Mesonotum with conspicuous transverse bands of microtrichia inserted anteriorly, dorsally; posterior margins of abdominal segments 1–8 each with fringe of prominent microtrichia.

4th instar larva. Antenna with single prominent mushroom element; postmentum truncate, without teeth; trunk hirsute; tergal plates each with row of prominent microtrichia along posterior margin.

Etymology

From Latin mucus, slime and Greek myia, fly, referring to the larval habitat of the type species. The grammatical gender of the genus is feminine.

Remarks

In Psychodinae , the mushroom element of the larval antennae is unique to Psychodini ( Duckhouse 1985) . This structure could be derived from an enlarged and/or fused series of sensilla basiconica. Nonetheless, for larval Psychodini it is a diagnostic character that can easily be recognized. The head capsule of Mucomyia , particularly the postmentum, is similar to that of Philosepedon humeralis ( Meigen, 1818) ( Vaillant 1974, p. 113, figure 247). Diagnostic characters given above for the larva and pupa are unique relative to descriptions that have been published to date. Adults of Mucomyia key to Philosepedon Eaton in keys to Neotropical genera of Psychodidae ( Quate 1996; Wagner and Ibañez-Bernal 2009). Philosepedon was, however, recently redefined and restricted by Omelková and Ježek (2012) and later Cordeiro et al. (2015), and in the strict sense it currently only comprises species in the Afrotropical and Palearctic regions. The generic classification of Psychodini is currently being reassessed, with new genera regularly being described and ‘traditional’ genera being redefined ( Curler and Moulton 2008; Omelková and Jezek 2012; Cordeiro et al. 2015; Kvifte 2015; Ježek and Le Pont 2016), and this process is likely to continue given the high diversity particularly in the Neotropical and Oriental regions. Since many taxa still are insufficiently characterized or undescribed, it is premature to offer a detailed differential diagnosis against other taxa; however, the combination of characters given in the diagnosis above separates Mucomyia from all other described world genera of Psychodini .