Kwarea ismayi Deeming, 2020

Dawah, Hassan A., Abdullah, Mohammed A. & Deeming, John C., 2020, An overview of the Chloropidae (Diptera) of Saudi Arabia, Zootaxa 4791 (1), pp. 1-71 : 26-28

Kwarea ismayi Deeming sp. n. ♂ ♀

( Figs 25 , 26 , a, b,c, d)

Material examined. Holotype ♂, SAUDI ARABIA: Um Al-Raq Island , 20°00’N 41°27’E, 25.xi.2015, H.A. Dawah ( NMWC) . Paratypes, 14♂, 43♀, same data as holotype ( NMWC, NHM, and CERS) .

Colour. All setulae, setae and claws black. Pollinosity heaviest on scutum, grey, elsewhere very weak. Head yellow with ocellar tubercle and occiput black, but postocular band and a large inverted triangle behind vertex, antenna and palpus yellow. Arista and haustellum of proboscis black, the postpedicel sometimes obscurely darkened. Thorax with scutum black on three anteriorly fused longitudinal bands, leaving a band from upper notopleuron to prescutellar declivity dirty yellow, the pleura with most of katepisternum black, with a bar on anepisternum adjacent to it black and dark spots on propleuron, anepimeron and meron, notopleuron abutting anepisternum narrowly black. Legs brown with knees, apices of tibiae and all tarsi somewhat paler. Wing hyaline with dark brown veins. Haltere yellow. Abdomen with tergites dark brown.

Head ( Fig 26a ). Eye sparsely short haired, frontal triangle more shiny than the adjacent frons, extending to mid length of frons; numerous proclinate interfrontal setulae present; proboscis geniculate, the haustellum ovoid in shape; clypeus projecting roundedly in profile.

Thorax. One postpronotal, two equal notopleural setae, the single (prescutellar) dorsocentral seta a little short- er than the postalar; the apical pair of scutellar marginal setae widely spaced, the subapical pair only half their length.

Legs Mid tibial spur large; male mid femoral organ ( Fig 26b ) consisting of a double row of studs, the more anterior of five and the more posterior of six situated basad of mid length and at an angle of c. 35° to the median line, the surface posterior to these rows devoid of setulae. Hind tibia lacking a visible sensory organ.

Wing ( Fig 26c ) with an even distribution of microchaetae, except on cell basad of humeral crossvein, which is largely devoid of them.

Abdomen Sternites weakly developed. Male genitalia ( Fig 26d ).

Length. 1.0 mm, of wing 1.0mm, of female sometimes slightly larger.

Remarks. Um Al-Raq Island is situated in the Farasan Island group in the Red Sea. Being inhabited only by a Saudi Arabian Army unit responsible for security, it is almost totally undisturbed, and no agricultural activity occurs there. The soldiers being persistently heavily bitten by a Leptoconops sp. ( Ceratopogonidae ), one of us (HAD) visited the island to look into control measures for the pest. In sweeping, sticky and Malaise trapping several dipterous species not previously found on the largest of the Farasan Islands were found to be abundant. Amongst these was a new species of Kwarea Sabrosky, 1954 , which genus was previously known only from the generotype species K. pallidihirta Sabrosky, 1954 from Tanzania. Of this species only the holotype and paratype (both of which are males) are recorded. Sabrosky (1954: 45) likens Kwarea to Psilacrum Becker , both having proclinate ocellar setae, but it differs from that genus in the development of the orbital setae, which are erect, strongly developed and three in number, rather than weak, and in having the postocellar (as postvertical) setae parallel to one another, rather than cruciate. He provides a modification to his (1951) key to the genera of Oscinellinae of the Ethiopian region (pp.743–747) to accommodate Kwarea . Since the number of erect strong orbital bristles differs in the two species between three and four, the generic diagnosis must be modified to take this into account. No mention of either Kwarea or Psilacrum appears in Andersson’s (1977) treatment of Old World genera of Chloropidae .

Etymology. Dr. John Ismay has prepared figures of the whole insect, frons and genitalia of one of the two specimens of K. pallidihirta and has very kindly given us copies of these, which greatly enhance the rather brief original description, and serve to differentiate the two species. In gratitude for this the new species is dedicated to him.

This species differs from K. pallidihirta in the following respects:

Figures

FIGURE 25. Kwarea ismayi sp.n. Deeming. Female.

FIGURE 26. Kwarea ismayi. a) Head in profile. (iv) denotes inner vertical seta, (ov) outer vertical seta, (po) postocellar and (oc) ocellar; b) Middle third of length of male mid femur in dorsal aspect. (A) denotes anterior, (B) basal, (Ap) apical and (MP) mid point of length; c) Wing; d) Male genitalia from beneath.