Amenia leonina (Fabricius)

Colless, D. H., 1998, Morphometrics in the genus Amenia and revisionary notes on the Australian Ameniinae (Diptera: Calliphoridae), with the description of eight new species, Records of the Australian Museum 50 (1), pp. 85-123 : 110-111

Amenia leonina (Fabricius) n.sens.

Amenia leonina leonina, Crosskey, 1965: 113 .

The characters given in the key serve, together, by weight of evidence, to identify all male specimens seen so far; but every character fails very occasionally. I have three males (from near Cooktown) that have a small, but distinct pair of submedian marginal bristles on abdominal T3; another three have the parafrontal bristles long and with bent apices; another has the postorbits partly obliterated; and, as shown in Part 1, four others have the broad head typical of A. albomaculata . Also, the appressed setulae on the central third or so of abdominal T3, although almost always evident, were in a few specimens not clearly developed. Nonetheless, in every case the characters jointly gave a convincing identification. The rather greenish hue of the thorax and (sometimes) the abdomen is also of some use. Of other attributes listed by Crosskey (1965), I find that the ocellar setae are by no means "weak", but usually just as strong as in A. albomaculata .

I have examined the specimens of A. leonina from Sydney, listed by Crosskey (1965), and can confirm that they are quite definitely of this species.

Distribution ( Fig. 8 ). Largely coastal, from the Kimberleys east to the Queensland-New South Wales border; replaced in New South Wales by A. albomaculata , except for one known occurrence in the vicinity of Sydney; then reappearing in central Victoria and the eastern part of South Australia (including Kangaroo Island). The reason(s) for this peculiar distribution remain obscure.

Notes. One of the specimens from South Australia was reared from a "caenenid" snail (sic;?camaenid).

Figures

Figure 8. Distributions of Amenia albomaculata (triangles) and Amenia leonina (circles) (overlapping records