Hypselothyrea africana, Papp, 2003

Papp, L., 2003, New Species And Records Of Hypselothyrea De Meijere (Diptera, Drosophilidae), Acta Zoologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 49 (4), pp. 271-294 : 272-274

Hypselothyrea africana sp. n.

( Fig. 1 )

Holotype male ( HNHM): “ Guinea, Coyah – 21. X. 1967., leg. Ferencz. ”

Measurements in mm: body length 2.30, wing length 2.05, wing breadth 0.40 only.

Body black, mesonotum granulated, thoracic pleura and abdomen shiny.

Frontal shield granulose, dark brown with bluish shine. Orbitalia very finely white microtomentose, i.e. subshiny. Face shiny light brown, carina nose-like in profile, broad (0.075 mm subapically), medially flat, sharply and strongly prominent (i.e. medial surface flat with sharp edges). One pair of long and thick fronto-orbitals in medial position. Vibrissa broken off on our specimen (but cannot be strong), peristomals rather weak. Hairs on eyes very short. Palpus black with a ca. 0.1 mm long apical seta. Arista with 8 dorsal and 5 ventral long branches and a moderate fork.

Mesonotum blackish with bluish shine, finely granulose. Scutellum totally black, extremely upright, its dorsal profile broken below the level of scutellar setae, its height over scutum 0.125 + 0.225 mm. One pair of strong, slightly prealar dorsocentrals. Anterior scutellars very long (0.36 mm) thick, cruciate, they emerge from small protuberances. Pleura shiny black.

Legs yellow, incl. fore coxa. Fore femur with minute thornlets anteroventrally.

Winginahighlystenopterousform,itspatternisremarkablysimilartothatof H.tenuis ( OKADA 1980: fig. 4). Vein R 2+3 runs very close to costal vein in its distal 7/10, curvatures are finer than in tenuis but the distances to costa at two places are less than the diameter of vein R 2+3. C-index extremely high, not precisely measurable on the slightly curved wing, ca. 3.45. C3 fringe hardly discernible, on 1/4 of whole length. Halteres with yellowish stalk and brown knob.

Abdomen very narrow, basal two segments hardly broader than half head breadth.

Male inner genitalia not studied. Epandrium small, cerci comparatively large like in H. tenuis (cf. OKADA 1980: fig. 17).

Distribution. This is the first described Hypselothyrea species from the African continent (cf. CHASSAGNARD et al. 1998, OKADA 1980).

Hypselothyrea africana sp. n. is related to H. tenuis OKADA, 1980 , a Papua New Guinean species. Actually I do not know a species which would be closer to it (wing pattern highly similar, etc.). However, the differences are definite. This is a strongly stenopterous species, with the wing length 5 times more than wing breadth. While apex of scutellum is white in tenuis , that of the new species is wholly black. It has 8 dorsal long branches on arista (5 in tenuis ). Since the differences found are more than enough to recognise this new species, I did not dissect the unique holotype.

Figures

Fig. 1. Hypselothyrea africana sp. n., holotype male (del. A. Szappanos)