Paragrallomyia albibasis (Enderlein, 1922)

Ferro, Gustavo Borges & Marshall, Stephen A., 2020, A redefinition of Paragrallomyia Hendel (Diptera: Micropezidae, Taeniapterinae) and a revision of the P. albibasis complex, Zootaxa 4822 (1), pp. 39-70 : 42-43

The Paragrallomyia albibasis complex

Diagnosis: Body length 4–7 mm, wing 3–5 mm. Thorax dark brown. Mesonotum black, sometimes with brownish postpronotal lobes. Two dorsocentral setae. Mid and hind femur with basal and subapical whitish rings.

Head: Orange to brownish. Frontal vitta usually at least slightly depressed below epicephalon level (except P. nodulosa n. sp. and P. thiemei (Enderlein)) . Frontal vitta usually darkened, sometimes with a black velvety spot anterior to ocelli. Outer vertical, inner vertical, orbital, and postocellar setae strong; 2 frontal setae. Vertex rounded.

Thorax: Uniformly black, or brownish laterally only. Postpronotal lobes black to dark brown or orange. Anterior half of postpronotal lobe bare or with at least three strong black setae. Cervical sclerite swollen on posterior half or smooth, without swelling. Mid and hind femur with basal and subapical whitish rings, basal ring length varying from 1/8 to 1/4 of femur length. Mid and hind tibia almost cylindrical or highly dilated and curved.

Abdomen: Tergites dark brown or brown, covered by brownish or darkened setulae. Pleural membrane uniformly darkened or with white bands on P1 and P3. Female abdomen: Internal reproductive structures highly variable among species, usually with a basally tapered and distally broad paired spermathecal duct and an apically broadened single spermathecal duct. Spermatheca number varying from three to four, single spermatheca sometimes forked. Male abdomen: Genital fork varying interspecifically, with inner basal lobes absent, quadrate or long and curved; arms generally converging, but sometimes pointed inward. Ejaculatory apodeme reduced or large, with a short and thin or long and broad blade. Phallapodeme and hypandrium usually same length as epandrium (longer in P. nodulosa and P. vulpes ). Distiphallus long, longer than epandrium and generally with a short and thin distal distiphallus (long and thin only in P. quaternaria n. sp.).

Comments: The P. albibasis complex is here recognized as a phenetic group based on Hennig’s (1934) key characters of P. albibasis (Enderlein) : darkened thorax, sometimes brownish only on postpronotal lobes; two dorsocentral setae; mid and hind femur with basal and subapical whitish rings. The recognition and revision of this complex helps to divide the species of the large genus Paragrallomyia into more manageable units for revision and allows the identification of some of the most abundant and widespread species of Neotropical Micropezidae .

A total of 17 species are described or redescribed herein: P. albibasis (Enderlein) , P. inpai (Albuquerque) , P. teresacristinae (Albuquerque) , P. thiemei (Enderlein) , P. vulpes (Cresson) and 12 new species. The key to the genera of Micropezidae of the Neotropical region in Marshall (2010) can be modified to fit the current diagnoses of Paragrallomyia and Taeniaptera , with the addition of the modified couplet below: