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

Materials

Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: 322040 ; recordedBy: Hoffman; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: kingdom: Animalia; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Diptera; family: Phoridae; genus: Megaselia; specificEpithet: voluntariorum; scientificNameAuthorship: Hartop, Brown, & Disney; Location: country: USA; stateProvince: California; municipality: Los Angeles; locality: Glendale ; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap; verbatimEventDate: 31.V-7.VI.2014; Record Level: institutionCode: LACM; collectionCode: ENT

Description

See description Table 2 and Fig. 2b, Fig. 3k, Fig. 5e.

Diagnosis

Male. In the group VIII key of Borgmeier (1966), M. voluntariorum keys to couplet 19. At this couplet, M. perplexa Malloch is described only from the female and thus ruled out, and M. polyporicola lacks a seta at the base of R on the wing, while M. voluntariorum has a short seta. Compared to other Megaselia from the Los Angeles area with a complete subcosta, M. voluntariorum has a short wing (just over 1mm) and short costal index (0.38).

Etymology

Named in honor of the many people that have, are, and will volunteer for the BioSCAN project. These volunteers are critical to our operation, and have contributed to everything from public outreach in the NHM Nature Lab to specialized work on phorid flies.

Distribution

Los Angeles, California (USA).

Biology

Unknown.