Munburra, Bickel, 2006

Bickel, Daniel J., 2006, Munburra, A New Fly Genus from Tropical Australia (Empididae: Empidinae), Records of the Australian Museum 58, pp. 129-132 : 129-130

Genus Munburra n.gen.

Etymology. Munburra is a geographic place name near the Mt Webb, Queensland type locality. The name is of aboriginal origin, and the gender is here designated as feminine.

Type species. Munburra bulbicornis n.sp.

Diagnosis. Genus Munburra : subfamily Empidinae , tribe Hilarini , with the following characters: laterotergite usually bare; tibia I with anteroapical comb of 8–10 short even setae; cercus usually small and desclerotized, and fused laterally with the surstylus and epandrium; hypandrium usually forming a curved convex hood over the aedeagus along the distal margin; costa circumambient; vein R 1 swollen before it joins the costa.

Generic characters: ocellar triangle large and as rounded mound raised above surface of frons in both sexes; ocelli relatively large, well developed; male postpedicel slightly excavated at base, but basally inflated and tapering subtriangular; frons broad; thorax mostly orange yellow; male It 1 not swollen, but rather thin and slightly curved, with dorsal row of setae, and long curved dorsoapical seta, almost as long as tarsomere; Sc incomplete; R 4 +5 forked and R 4 with gentle Sshaped curve; hypopygium of the Hilara-Hilarempis type, with hypandrial keel narrow and covering aedeagus, cercus small and setose, and epandrium deeply split .

Remarks. Munburra is a monotypic genus from tropical monsoonal Australia with a single included species, M. bulbicornis . It is included in the tribe Hilarini (see Bickel, 1996) based on the characters listed in the Diagnosis, above. The genus is defined by the three apomorphies: a large, raised ocellar triangle with enlarged ocelli, and two distinctive male secondary sexual characters, a greatly swollen postpedicel, and a long dorsoapical seta on a narrow unswollen leg I first tarsomere. I have not seen these character states developed in other genera in the tribe.

Further, the Hilarini are more characteristic of temperate (both Northern and Southern Hemisphere) or montane habitats than the lowland tropics. Certainly many more taxa have been described from temperate regions, and although this may reflect regional collecting bias and/or the absence of netting along streams in the tropics, the Australian tropical fauna is indeed much poorer than that of southern Australia / Tasmania. Therefore the presence of such an unusual genus in the tropics of Cape York Peninsula is of interest.

In some respects, Munburra appears similar to the genus Sphicosa Philippi , which comprises southern SouthAmerican species and undescribed Australian species.Although Sphicosa is definitely in the tribe Empidini , the two genera appear to have a similar obliquely projecting proboscis (although in Munburra it can be elevated and depressed through the oral cavity, and is normally held in a vertical position), a costa reduced in thickness beyond R 4+5, and R 1 is not apically swollen. As well, the hypopygium of some male Sphicosa also have a keel-like hypandrium and appears almost hilarine-like. I regard these similarities as homoplasious, part of the suite of characters available for expression across the Empidinae , in both the Empidini and Hilarini .