Austrolimnophila Alexander, 1920a

Podenas, Sigitas, Park, Sun-Jae, Byun, Hye-Woo, Kim, A-Young, Klein, Terry A. & Aukštikalnienė, Heung-Chul Kim and Rasa, 2020, New data on Limoniinae and Limnophilinae crane flies (Diptera: Limoniidae) of Korea, Journal of Species Research 9 (4), pp. 492-531 : 498-499

Austrolimnophila Alexander, 1920a

Limnophila (Austrolimnophila) Alexander, 1920a: 4-5 .

Austrolimnophila Edwards, 1938: 63 , 67; Alexander, 1948: 153; Ishida, 1959: 2; Savchenko, Krivolutskaya, 1976: 53; Savchenko, 1983: 48; 1986: 227-229; 1989: 62-64.

Type species: Limnophila eutaeniata Bigot, 1888 ( South America ) .

Adult.

Medium-sized crane flies with body length 6.5-11.1 mm and wing length 7.5-10.5 mm. Body coloration varies from yellow to brown.

Head: Rounded posteriorly without neck-like extension. Vertex wide without tubercle, or with very small and indistinct tubercle. Antenna with 14-segmented flagellum, usually longer in males, reaching wing base or base of abdomen, if bent backwards. Flagellomeres elongate, apical segment subequal in length to preceding. Verticils long and distinct, usually longer than respective segment.

Thorax: Prothorax elongate. Mesonotal prescutum without or with indistinct small tubercular pits, pseudosutural fovea small and indistinct, longitudinal stripes present, but number varies, one, two or four. Pleuron with bare katepisternum and small reduced meron, thus middle and posterior coxae close to each other. Wing long and narrow, patternless or with dark spots surrounding cross-veins, stigma present. Arculus missing, vein Sc long, reaching wing margin close to the branching point of Rs, sc-r slightly before tip of Sc. R 1 short and transverse, or elongate, R 3 and R 4 nearly parallel to each other, just slightly diverging at wing margin. Cell m 1 long with short stem, sometimes stem missing. Discal cell always present, elongate. Cross-vein m-cu distinctly beyond base, usually close to the middle of discal cell. Anal vein long, slightly sinuous, reaching wing margin close to the level of Rs base. Anal angle distinct. Wing cells without macrotrichiae. Wing squama setoseless. All legs with tibial spurs, usually foreleg with single spur, middle and posterior legs with two spurs each.

Abdomen: Tergites with paired transverse sutures close to the anterior margin of sclerite. Male terminalia approximately as wide as the rest abdominal segments, slightly elongate. Sclerites of ninth abdominal segment connected into genital ring in male. Ninth tergite wider than longer, posterior margin modified, with additional lobes or indentations. Gonocoxite with interbase, elongate, with or without ventro-mesal lobe, two pairs of terminal gonostyli, shape of which is species-specific. Aedeagus species-specific, could be short and straight, but elongate in some species. Ovipositor with long and narrow cerci and hypovalvae, distal part of cercus slightly raised upwards, point-apexed.

Larva.

Body white. Head capsule oval, depressed dorsoventrally and slightly reduced ( Wood, 1952; Lindner, 1959; Krivosheina, 2009; Krivosheina and Krivosheina, 2011). Frons triangular, separated from internolateralia by frontal sutures. Coronal suture wide, dorsal sutures reaching one-third of head capsule length. Clypeus separated from frons, fused with labrum. Labrum consists of two membranous areas with sensory structures which are separated by elongated outgroove. Antenna cylindrical, three times as long as wide at base. Apical papilla button-shaped. Mandible large, heavily sclerotized, with two well developed apical teeth. Ventral and dorsal margins with several smaller teeth. Maxilla well developed, sclerotized at the base and setose at the apex, cardo large. Hypostoma with five teeth. Hypopharynx shaped as a hemispherical cushion with numerous short spines, laterally supported by H-shaped hypopharyngeal bar. Prementum reduced. Abdominal segments II- VII with ventral and dorsal creeping welts. Spiracular lobes reduced. Spiracular field surrounded by five sclerites: dorsal and two pairs of lateral. Spiracle oval. Anal field with two pairs of white fleshy anal papillae. Larvae are terrestrial, developing in decomposing fungi and decaying wood ( Lindner, 1959; Krivosheina, 2009; Krivosheina and Krivosheina, 2011).

Pupa.

Body yellowish brown. Head: Cephalic crest consists of two pairs of short outgrooves. Mesonotal spines absent. Antenna short, reaching base of wing. Thorax: Pronotal horns elongated, with acute apices directed ventrally. Sheaths of legs reaching middle of fifth abdominal segment. Abdomen: Abdominal segments divided by fissures into short anterior and long posterior parts. Segments III- VII with dorsal and ventral transversal rows of spines ( Wood, 1952).

A total of 190 species belong to Austrolimnophila worldwide ( Oosterbroek, 2020). They are divided into five subgenera A. ( Archilimnophila ) Alexander, 1934b, A. ( Austrolimnophila ) Alexander, 1920a, A. ( Limnophilaspis ) Alexander, 1950a, A. ( Mediophragma ) Alexander, 1954, and A. ( Phragmocrypta ) Alexander, 1956. Nominative subgenus with 175 species has worldwide distribution, Archilimnophila , 6 species with only a Holarctic distribution, Limnophilaspis with only two species recorded from the Oriental Region, Mediophragma with only two species recorded from the Neotropics, Phragmocrypta with five species that only have a Afrotropic distribution ( Oosterbroek, 2020). One fossil species is described from Low- er Cretaceous Burmese amber and one species is recorded from Dominican Miocene amber ( Evenhuis, 2014).