Psilota aislinnae Young, 2020

Young, Andrew D., Skevington, Jeffrey H. & Steenis, Wouter Van, 2020, Revision of the Psilota Meigen, 1822 flower flies (Diptera: Syrphidae) of Australia, Zootaxa 4737 (1), pp. 1-127 : 19

Psilota aislinnae Young sp. nov.

(Species plate: Fig. 5 ; Map: Fig. 50A )

Diagnosis: Strongly iridescent green over entire thorax and abdomen, with some blue reflective areas. Face metallic copperish, with some green laterally. Frons and face yellow pilose. Hind leg simple. Body length: 6.3–7.7 mm.

Description: MALE: Unknown.

FEMALE: Head: Vertex and occiput metallic blue, frons metallic green, face metallic dull red or copper. Head shining, free of pollinosity. Face and frons with bright yellow pile. Vertex with black pile. Antenna entirely orange. Eye sparsely pilose, pile whiteish. Thorax: Thorax entirely iridescent blue and green, shining, pollinosity free. Legs dark metallic blue, with some greenish iridescence. Hind femur unmodified, with only a few weak, black setulae apicoventrally. Pleuron black pilose. Scutum mostly black pilose, with some white pile anterior to transverse suture, and laterally to postalar callus. Scutellum black pilose. Halter dark brown. Calypter dark brown. Wing colourless, with bare areas at the bases of cells c, cua, m 4, and dm, anterior half of cell bm bare. Abdomen: Abdominal sclerites entirely iridescent bluish-green. Tergites 1–3 black pilose. Tergite 4 with some white pilosity on apical half. Sternite 1 black pilose, other sternites white pilose.

Etymology: This species is named after the lead author’s partner, Aislinn Wyatt. Throughout all ADY’s years of syrphidology and post-secondary education, Ais has been the most loving partner anyone could ever ask for, as well as the occasional field assistant.

Specimens examined: HOLOTYPE: AUSTRALIA: Queensland: Lamington National Park, Lahey Memorial , -28.188 153.121, 15.xii.2008 – 6.i.2009, Malaise trap. G. Monteith. QM Reg. No. T 222154 (1♀, QM) . PARATYPE:

Queensland: Kuranda. ANIC Database No 29 034453 (1♀, ANIC) .

Discussion: This species is known from only two female specimens, one collected in Kuranda QLD(Queensland), and one from Lamington National Park QLD. This widely disjunct distribution suggests that the species is present but rare across the east coast of Australia. Although no male has been collected, the holotype was successfully DNA barcoded, so if a male is collected in the future it can be confidently matched to the holotype using DNA evidence. The barcode data extracted from the holotype is publicly available on the BOLD website (process ID: SYCNC805- 18) and on Genbank ( MK073252 ), as detailed above in the Material and methods section.

Figures

FIGURE 5. P. aislinnae sp. nov., A) female dorsal habitus, B) female anterolateral face, C) female lateral habitus. Scale bar =1 mm.

FIGURE 50. Known range of A) P. aislinnae sp. nov.; B) P. alexanderi sp. nov.