Elephantomyia Osten Sacken, 1860

Podenas, Sigitas, Byun, Hye-Woo & Kim, Sam-Kyu, 2015, Limoniinae crane flies (Diptera: Limoniidae) new to Korea, Journal of Species Research 4 (2), pp. 61-96 : 70

Elephantomyia Osten Sacken, 1860

Elephantomyia Osten Sacken, 1860: 220 ; Alexander, 1948: 522; Ito, 1948: 89; Ishida, 1959: 2; Savchenko and Krivolutskaya, 1976: 74; Savchenko, 1983: 62, 1986: 202, 1989: 49.

Type species ­ Limnobiorhynchus canadensis Westwood, 1836 (= westwoodi Osten Sacken, 1869).

Medium­sized crane flies, with wing length ranging from 6.0 to 11.0 mm. Main body color yellow or brownish yellow. Eyes large, often greenish in alive specimens. Rostrum strongly elongated, usually as long as abdomen. Small three­segmented palpi at the end of rostrum. Antenna short. Antennal flagellum usually 14­segmented with very small distal segment. Tubercular pits of prescutum missing. Wing subhyaline, spotless, sometimes jus costal field slightly pigmented. Veins Sc 1 and Sc 2 close to each other, ending slightly before branching point of Rs; two branches of Rs ( R 2 + 3 and R 4 + 5); R 2 (r­ r) missing. Discal cell large, nearly right­angled. Basal deflection of CuA 1 close to the middle of discal cell. Cell a 2 large. Second and third pairs of coxae are close to each other, because meron is strongly reduced. Male genitalia large. Ninth tergite and ninth sternite forming complete genital ring. Ninth tergite usually with wide and deep median incision. Gonocoxite wide at base, getting narrower towards apex, without interbase. Two pairs of terminal or subterminal gonostyles. Outer gonostylus narrow, often bifid at tip. Penis usually very long and coiled, sometimes straight. Paramere large, often with set of spines apically. Ovipositor with long and slightly arched cercus. Hypovalvae reaching about to two thirds of cercus.

Larval body cylindrical, terete, yellowish white, covered with long silky light brown setae. Creeping welts present on abdominal segments V­VII. Spiracular field with four lobes, ventral pair is longest. Ventral lobe with very long apical bristle. Spiracular lobes heavily sclerotised and almost entirely covered with dark sclerites. Spiracles are medium­sized, widely separated, located at the base of lateral lobes. Anus is surrounded by four inconspicuous anal papillae. Head capsule is reduced, weakly sclerotised, very long and narrow. In general, the head capsule is more similar to that of subfamily Chioneinae . Labium membranous, with premandibles on ventral side. Mandible very small, heavily sclerotised with blunt apical teeth. Maxillae well­developed, membranous. Labium inconspicuous. One of the most outstanding features of the genus is presence of heavily sclerotised comb­like structures surrounding oesophangus.

Pupa free. Body pale, segments without tubercles, but cuticle covered with microscopic spines. Antennal sheath is lying across eye, short, reaching only wing base. Small crest present above the eye. Sheath of wing short, reaching end of abdominal segment II. Leg sheaths extending about to base of fifth abdominal segment; they are different in length. Pronotal breathing horns are very small, elongate, slightly widened and rounded at apex.

Larvae live in wet, rotten wood of various deciduous trees. Pupae develop in the same habitat as larvae ( Alexander, 1920a; Krivosheina, 2010).

The genus includes 132 species distributed worldwide ( Oosterbroek, 2015). The genus divided further into four subgenera, with which the largest subgenus includes 99 species from the world. Highest diversity of Elephantomyia (Elephantomyia) is observed in Neotropic (38 species) and Afrotropical Regions (37 species). Twelve species are known in Palaearctic Region. The genus was unknown from Korean Peninsula ( Kim, 2013). Five species of Elephantomyia are known from Baltic and Dominican ambers ( Evenhuis, 2014).