Crossopalpus complicatus, Grootaert & Velde, 2019

Grootaert, Patrick & Velde, Isabella Van De, 2019, Empidoid flies from Cabo Verde (Diptera, Empidoidea, Dolichopodidae and Hybotidae) are not only composed of Old World tropical species, European Journal of Taxonomy 528, pp. 1-17 : 11-14

Crossopalpus complicatus sp. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:F88E44C6-ED90-4A5D-A35B-D8DAB8AC5910

Figs 7–8

Diagnosis

Antenna black but postpedicel contrastingly reddish yellow. All tibiae yellow. Hind tibiae lacking long black dorsal bristles, but long fine yellowish hairs present; ventrally with long fine black bristles twice as long as width of tibia.

Etymology

The specific epithet refers to the complicated structure of the male terminalia.

Type material

Holotype CAPE VERDE • ♂; Sal, Santa Maria; 16°36′36.50″ N, 22°55′27.45″ W; 5 Feb. 2019; P. Grootaert and I. Van de Velde leg.; irrigated waste land; RBINS.

Description

Male ( Figs 7–8 )

MEASUREMENTS. Body: 2.9 mm; wing: 2.4 mm

HEAD. Black. Eyes touching on face near middle, widening below toward palpi, grey dusted. Frons parallel-sided, as wide as scape, finely dusted. A pair of long proclinate black ocellars and a pair of long crossing black verticals. Postoculars short, white, uniseriate above, biseriate below. Antenna black, except for the reddish yellow pedicel. Scape very short; pedicel as long as wide, with a black ventral bristle more than twice as long as pedicel; postpedicel 1.5× as long as wide; stylus subapical three times as long as all antennal segments together or five times as long as postpedicel. Ratio of scape, pedicel, postpedicel and stylus in mm: 0.026:0.052:0.091:0.52.

Palpus rounded, covered with white hairs and one long black apical bristle as long as palpus. Proboscis strong, shining black, half as long as eye.

THORAX. Black. Pleura shiny except for a sparse dusting on mesopleura. Scutum shiny black, uniformly densely covered with short pale hairs. Five long black dorsocentrals, acrostichals lacking, two long notopleurals, one pre-sutural, one supra-alar, one postalar. A pair of long scutellars with a seta at each side, half as long as the apical scutellar setae.

LEGS. With a colour pattern. Fore coxa black, but apical margin narrowly reddish yellow. All trochanters contrastingly reddish-yellow with a ventral black spot. Fore femur shiny black, but apical quarter reddish yellow. Mid femur black, but only apical fifth reddish yellow. Hind femur shiny black, but extreme base and apical fifth reddish yellow. All tibiae and tarsomeres 1–3 reddish yellow. All tarsomeres 4 with apical half brown, all tarsomeres 5 entirely brown.

FORE LEG. Coxa protruding at base, covered with short white hairs, apical setae longer, white. Fore femur spindle-shaped enlarged in basal ⅔. A long fine black anterior and a posterior preapical present. A row of white posteroventral setae in basal half nearly as long as half the width of femur, basalmost seta longer than width of femur. Tibia with a pair of long black preapicals, ventrally with inconspicuous hairs.

MID LEG. Coxa with white apical setae. Mid femur more slender than fore femur. Anterodorsally with a row of short white setae. Ventrally with short dense white hairs, basal seta longer than width of femur.

HIND LEG. Femur spindle-shaped dilated in medial two quarters, about as wide as fore femur. Dorsally with a dense white setation on basal third. Two brownish anterodorsal setae on apical quarter. About five short white anteroventral setae, less than half as long as width of femur. A white ventral seta at base twice as long as width of femur. A long preapical anterior seta, posterior preapical lacking. Tibia shorter than femur. Ventrally over entire length with white hairs at least half as long as width of tibia, the hairs are densest on apical half; two long brown ventral setae longer than width of tibia on apical half. Two stronger black anterior setae near middle. One pale and one white anteroventral setae on basal half. Apex of tibia with two short black spines and a long triangular spur, with a small subapical notch. Tarsomere 1 long, apical ⅔ posteroventrally with a dense tuft of golden, flattened hairs. Ventrally with a short black spine near middle and an apical spine.

WING. Clear with yellowish brown veins. Hairs on costa pale, basal coastal bristle long, black. Squama pale, with long white cilia. Haltere white.

ABDOMEN. With seven visible tergites, all shiny black and covered with fine pale hairs. Anterior half of tergite 1 not sclerotized, but posterior half strongly sclerotized. Sternites with central parts strongly sclerotized, black, covered with pale hairs, sternites 2 and 3 with a few longer marginal setae.

TERMINALIA. Black ( Fig. 8 ), narrower than tip of abdomen. Cerci apically broadly fused ( Fig. 8C ). Right surstylus consisting of three lobes. The dorsal lobe has a wide apex with a small point on the apical border, covered with few short hairs ( Fig. 8A ). The ventral lobe of the right surstylus is covered with longer bristles. Left surstylus composed of two short lobes only ( Fig. 8C ).

Female

Unknown.

Remarks

The new species belongs to the C. aenescens -group sensu Collin 1960 as referred by Smith (1967). This group is characterized by the right surstylus, which is split up in two or more lobes. The dorsal lobe has a broad tip with a small apical point ( Fig. 8A ) and the ventral lobe is generally set with long bristles.

Key to male Crossopalpus from Cape Verde

1. Hind tibia with strong dorsal bristles ( Fig. 4 ); antenna entirely black ............................................. 2

– Hind tibiae with weak dorsal bristles ( Fig. 7 ), but long ventrals; pedicel contrastingly reddish yellow, scape and postpedicel black ........................................................................... C. complicatus sp. nov.

2. Male terminalia large, broader than apex of abdomen (lobes of right surstylus as in figs 3–4 in Smith 1967) ................................................................................................ C. aenescens Wiedemann, 1830

– Male terminalia narrower than apex of abdomen ( Fig. 4 ) .................................... C. salensis sp. nov.

For the identification of the Afrotropical Crossopalpus we refer to the keys of Raffone (1994) and Grootaert & Shamshev (2012). Illustrations of the various lobes of the right surstylus of the aenescens group can be found in Smith (1967).

Figures

Fig. 7. Crossopalpus complicatus sp. nov., male holotype, habitus (leg. P. Grootaert and I. Van de Velde, RBINS).

Fig. 8. Crossopalpus complicatus sp. nov., male holotype, terminalia (leg. P. Grootaert and I. Van de Velde, RBINS). A. Right surstyli. B. Lateral view of right epandrial lamella. C. Dorsal view of epandrium, with detail of left surstyli. D. Tip of right surstylus from inside. Scales: 0.1 mm.

Fig. 4. Crossopalpus salensis sp. nov., male holotype, habitus (leg. P. Grootaert and I. Van de Velde, RBINS).