A new species of Myiopharus Brauer and Bergenstamm (Diptera: Tachinidae) parasitic on adults of the sunflower beetle, Zygogramma exclamationis (Fabricius)
Author
O’Hara, James E.
text
Zootaxa
2007
1521
31
41
journal article
49481
10.5281/zenodo.177452
5e048e8a-640d-4326-9a43-355353600ca0
1175-5326
177452
Myiopharus
Brauer and Bergenstamm, 1889
Myiopharus
Brauer and Bergenstamm, 1889
: 161
(also 1890: 93).
Type
species:
Myiopharus metopia
Brauer and Bergenstamm, 1889
, by monotypy.
The
type
species of
Myiopharus
is
M. metopia
, described from the Neotropical Region.
Reinhard (1945)
added the first North American species to
Myiopharus
,
M. dorsalis
(
Coquillett, 1898
)
, and described two additional species,
M. canadensis
and
M. securis
. This classification, recognizing three species of
Myiopharus
in
America
north of
Mexico
, was followed by
Sabrosky and Arnaud (1965)
. An earlier synonymy of the North American genus
Adoryphorophaga
Townsend (1931)
with
Myiopharus
by
Mesnil (1960: 653)
was either overlooked or disregarded by
Sabrosky and Arnaud (1965)
.
Aldrich (1934)
described two new species of
Myiopharus
from
Chile
, and
Guimarães (1971)
grouped these and eight other species under
Myiopharus
in his catalogue of the
Tachinidae
of
America
south of the
United States
.
Wood (1985)
re-evaluated the generic concepts of
Myiopharus
and other blondeliine genera in his revision of the
Blondeliini
of North and Central
America
. In an attempt to simplify the oversplit classification of his predecessors, and to bring related species closer together, Wood proposed a revised classification that consisted of fewer, more broadly defined, genera. His intention was to group species based on similarities and shared derived characters, and the result was 55 genera and 177 new generic synonyms for the
Blondeliini
of North and Central
America
.
Myiopharus
remained an exclusively New World genus, but swelled in size from fewer than 15 described species in the New World to 54 described species in just North and Central
America
(creating over 30 new generic synonyms in the process). Wood (pers. comm.) believes there are about 50 described species in South
America
that should also be classified in
Myiopharus
in addition to many undescribed species throughout the Neotropics, making this the largest genus in the
Blondeliini
. Relatively few species are known from
America
north of
Mexico
, where
O’Hara and Wood (2004)
listed just 14 species. It is suspected that the hosts of
Myiopharus
species are exclusively beetles in the family
Chrysomelidae
, with other recorded hosts probably being in error (
Wood 1985
). The sister group to
Myiopharus
within the
Blondeliini
has not been determined, though
Wood (1985)
suggested that the monotypic genus
Thelyoxynops
Townsend
from
Trinidad
might be related to, or possibly congeneric with,
Myiopharus
.
The monophyly of
Myiopharus
has not been established, and the genus could possibly be paraphyletic. It does contain species of different appearance; for example, the males of some species have a black thorax and shiny frons (
Fig. 5
) whereas males of other species are gray like females (
Fig. 1
), the eye is densely haired in most species and sparsely haired in a few, and the facial ridge is setose along most of its length in some species and on less than lower half in others (
Figs. 2, 4
). As well, female ovipositors vary from tubular to piercing to laterally flattened (
Figs. 7–8
). These sorts of differences are often used to separate genera and explain in part why the
Myiopharus
species of
Wood (1985)
were once dispersed among many genera. Yet there is also a continuity among species for certain characters and a continuum from one species to the next for others, such that there is no easy way to divide the genus nor any clear indication that it is not monophyletic.
Myiopharus
is easily recognizable as a blondeliine tachinid by a combination of character states (
Wood 1985
; couplet
119 in
Wood 1987
): prosternum haired, first postsutural supra-alar seta smaller than first postsutural dorsocentral seta, scutellum with four setae including a pair of large and divergent subapicals, and bend of vein
M
rounded and obtuse-angled.
Myiopharus
is less easily characterized, keying out three times in
Wood (1987)
. The genus is diagnosed in
Wood (1985)
. The species described here,
M. neilli
, can be recognized as a member of
Myiopharus
by the following features: eye moderately to densely haired, parafacial bare, both sexes with 2 pairs of proclinate orbital setae (
Fig. 4
), subvibrissal ridge with row of 2–3 setae (
Fig. 2
), proepisternum bare, vein
R
4+5 with just a few hairs basally, middorsal depression on abdominal syntergite 1+2 not extended back to hind margin of syntergite (but close), and body black or almost so in ground color.