Megaselia stoakesi Hartop, Brown, & Disney 2016

Hartop, Emily A., Brown, Brian V. & Disney, R. Henry L., 2016, Flies from L. A., The Sequel: A further twelve new species of Megaselia (Diptera: Phoridae) from the BioSCAN Project in Los Angeles (California, USA), Biodiversity Data Journal 4, pp. 7756-7756 : 7756

Megaselia stoakesi Hartop, Brown, & Disney 2016 sp. n.

Materials

Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: 9-12 ; recordedBy: Ralph Stoakes; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: kingdom: Animalia; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Diptera; family: Phoridae; genus: Megaselia; specificEpithet: stoakesi; scientificNameAuthorship: Hartop, Brown, & Disney; Location: country: USA; stateProvince: Colorado; county: Larimer; verbatimLocality: Soapstone Prairies Natural Area, Spittlewood Creek; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap; verbatimEventDate: 10.X.2010; Record Level: institutionCode: CUMZ Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: 322009 ; recordedBy: Donahue; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: kingdom: Animalia; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Diptera; family: Phoridae; genus: Megaselia; specificEpithet: stoakesi; scientificNameAuthorship: Hartop, Brown, & Disney; Location: country: USA; stateProvince: California; municipality: Los Angeles; locality: Mount Washington ; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap; verbatimEventDate: 1-8.XI.2014; Record Level: institutionCode: LACM; collectionCode: ENT

Description

See description Table 2 and Fig. 1i, Fig. 2g, Fig. 3i, Fig. 5c.

Diagnosis

Male. In the keys of Borgmeier (1964), this species can be taken through either the group III or group V key, depending on whether one takes the stronger setae on the posterior edge of the anepisternum as strong hairs or weak bristles. In the key to group III, it keys to couplets 13 or 14 (depending on whether the setation on the epandrium is judged to be bristles or bristlelike hairs), and in the key to group V it keys to couplets 6 or 7 (depending on whether the brown palps are considered to be black or yellow). It can easily be differentiated from any of the species found at these couplets by the presence of dense fields of short, blunt spines on f3 basally (Fig. 2g).

Etymology

Named in honor of Ralph Stoakes, the collector of the holotype.

Distribution

Los Angeles, California and Larimer County, Colorado (USA).

Biology

Unknown.