Cheilosia ( Cheilosia ) paragigantea Barkalov, 1993

Bot, Sander, Mengual, Ximo, Meutter, Frank Van de & Skevington, Jeffrey H., 2025, Review of the genus Cheilosia Meigen, 1822 (Diptera: Syrphidae) from the Caucasus, with the description of 14 new species, European Journal of Taxonomy 1023, pp. 1-181 : 106-107

Cheilosia ( Cheilosia) paragigantea Barkalov, 1993

Fig. 53

Cheilosia paragigantea Barkalov, 1993: 706 .

Cheilosia paragigantea – Barkalov & Mutin 2018: 483. — Mengual et al. 2020: 19.

Differential diagnosis

Cheilosia paragigantea is a member of a group of closely related species, called the proxima group ( Vujić et al. 2013) in which the pilose eyes, posterior margin of scutellum with setae, usually partly yellow legs, continuously pilose katepisternum, pruinose sterna and the shape of postgonite are distinctive characters. For a full diagnosis of the Cheilosia proxima group see Vujić et al. (2013). Cheilosia paragigantea stands out, together with C. teberdensis from other members of the proxima group occurring in the Caucasus by having black legs (tibiae yellow at both ends in the other species). Similar to C. teberdensis but larger (body size 11–13 mm vs 9–10 mm), postpedicel ranging from blackish to orange (black in C. teberdensis ), the male has pile on terga II–IV with distinctive alternating black and white piles: pile on terga on anterior part in center white and erect, in posterior part black and erect (terga with erect white pile and adpressed black pile in C. teberdensis ) and the female has the pile on the scutum black (with short mainly yellow pile and longer black pile in C. teberdensis ).

Material examined

Collected in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023; see Mengual et al. (2020) for detailed records from 2018.

Genetics

DNA sequences of C. paragigantea are grouped together with high support (BS = 100%).

Biology

During our expeditions, collected between 8 May and 8 July at an altitude between 1798 and 2601 m a.s.l. This species was most often caught feeding on Salix sp. on alpine meadows.

Distribution

Caucasus ( Georgia, Russia).