Chelifera horvati Ivkovic & Sinclair

Ivkovic, Marija, Cevid, Josipa, Horvat, Bogdan & Sinclair, Bradley J., 2017, Aquatic dance flies (Diptera, Empididae, Clinocerinae and Hemerodromiinae) of Greece: species richness, distribution and description of five new species, ZooKeys 724, pp. 53-100 : 61-62

Chelifera horvati Ivkovic & Sinclair sp. n. Figs 1, 11

Type locality.

Greece: Central Greece, Etolia, Arta, Loutraki.

Type material.

HOLOTYPE ♂, labelled: "GREECE: Central Greece/ Etolia, Arta, Loutraki/ 16.iv.1990/ leg. B. Horvat, I. Sivec"; "HOLOTYPE/ Chelifera / horvati / Ivković & Sinclair" (CNC, dried from alcohol).

Diagnosis.

A yellow-brown species with distinct, brown and rounded pterostigma, characterized in the male by dark brown cercus with elongate, slender forked process at mid-length, posteriorly tapered epandrium with stout inner setae and membranous distiphallus with two elongate lobes.

Description.

Male. Body length 4 mm, wing length 3.6 mm. Head dorsoventrally flattened, dark brown; ocellar triangle dark brown; all setae whitish. Eyes iridescent black; narrowly separated on face. Face with thick, whitish pubescence. One pair of postocular setae and scattered fine setae on vertex. Occiput bearing scattered fine setulae; gena with rather dense short, downwardly directed whitish pile. Antenna whitish, with scape and pedicel bearing distinct short dorsal setulae; postpedicel about 1.5 × as long as wide, stylus much shorter than postpedicel.

Thorax elongate; yellow, all setae yellowish. Mesonotum with pair of brown vittae, extending around prescutellar depression; small dark spot posterior to postpronotal lobe and larger dark spot near wing base. Holotype missing most thoracic setae.

Wing (slightly damaged) membrane transparent, veins yellow; pterostigma dark, rounded, with R2+3 arched around it; fork of R4+5 less than 90°; cell r4 rather long, R5 nearly 2 × as long as R4. Halter pale.

Legs whitish yellow, apical two tarsal segments on all legs brown. Fore coxa about 8 × longer than wide with several pale dorsoapical setae. Fore femur slightly longer than fore coxa, more than 4 × longer than wide, evenly inflated, widest at middle. Fore femur with two rows of black ventral denticles and two rows of strong outer brownish-yellow ventral setae, with following chaetotaxy: 20 anteroventral denticles, 6 anteroventral spine-like setae, 21 posteroventral denticles, 6 posteroventral spine-like setae; denticles closely spaced and rows converging distally; posteroventral spine-like setae shorter distally. Fore tibia 0.6 × as long as fore femur, evenly curved with anteroventral row of short, spine-like setae; with apicoventral dark spur-like seta, longer than width of tibia. Mid and hind femora with anteroventral row of short, slender setae.

Abdomen yellow ventrally, brown dorsally, with pale setae most conspicuous on hind margin of posterior sternites. Terminalia (Fig. 11): cercus dark brown, thick, with narrow, elongate process at mid-length with forked apex (process folded horizontally in non-macerated condition); anterior end of cercus pointed and curved medially, with long setae, posterior end of cercus rounded; cercus wider then epandrium. Epandrium yellowish-brown, concave medially, posteriorly pointed with 5 stout setae on inner apical margin directed medially; entire epandrium covered in numerous setae. Hypandrium yellow, quadrate, with posteroapical lobe and concave posterior margin; pale setae on posteroventral face. Postgonite slender, sickle-shaped. Distiphallus membranous, expanded into two elongate lobes; apex of posterior lobe with pigmented arch-shaped sclerotization.

Female. Unknown.

Etymology.

The new species is named after the late Dr Bogdan Horvat, mentor of the first author, colleague and during his life a leading expert on the genus Chelifera Macquart.

Remarks.

Chelifera horvati sp. n. is known only from one site in Greece. The narrow pigmented and sclerotized apex of the distiphallus of C. horvati sp. n. is similar in C. concinnicauda Collin, 1927, C. diversicauda Collin, 1927, C. giraudae Vaillant, 1982 and C. subangusta Collin, 1961 (see Collin 1961 and Vaillant 1982).