Cheilosia ( Cheilosia ) transcaucasica Stackelberg, 1960

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 : 136-138

Cheilosia ( Cheilosia) transcaucasica Stackelberg, 1960

Fig. 70

Cheilosia transcaucasica Stackelberg, 1960: 440 .

Cheilosia transcaucasica – Stackelberg & Richter 1968: 249. — Stackelberg 1970: 59. — Peck 1988: 118. — Barkalov 1993: 714. — Barkalov & Mutin 2018: 484. — Mengual et al. 2020: 21.

Cheilosia transcaucasika Stackelberg, 1956 [sic] – Gujabidze 2002: 246.

Differential diagnosis

Cheilosia transcaucasica has a pilose face, pilose eye, black legs, posterior margin of scutellum with setae and sterna pruinose. It stands out amongst Cheilosia species with the same set of characters by the yellow wing base ( Fig. 70C), brown or black in the other species. Genetically similar to Cheilosia inarmata sp. nov., but that species has the face bare (pilose in C. transcaucasica ).

Material examined

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

Genetics

DNA barcodes of C. transcaucasica are grouped together with high support (BS = 100%), with the exception of three specimens from Georgia (ZFMK-TIS-8002801, ZFMK-TIS-8002826, ZFMKTIS- 8009526) that share the COI haplotype with C. inarmata sp. nov.

Remarks

Stackelberg (1960) described the species based on material from Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Stackelberg & Richter (1968) reported material from Armenia, Georgia and Northern Caucasus. Barkalov (1993) stated that this species is found in the entire Caucasus, and later, Barkalov & Mutin (2018) listed it from Northern Caucasus and Iran. Khaghaninia et al. (2012) and Khaghaninia & Kazerani (2014) published the Iranian records. Kuznetzov & Lyubvina (2001) listed the species from the Zhiguli (also Zhigulevsky) Nature Reserve, officially the I.I. Sprygin Zhiguli State Nature Biosphere Reserve. The Zhiguli Nature Reserve is located in the Samara Region, which is part of the European part of Russia. More recently, Lyubvina (2019) did not include C. transcaucasica in her report of Diptera Brachycera species from the Zhiguli Nature Reserve.

The three Georgian specimens that cluster with the DNA barcodes of C. inarmata sp. nov. have been studied several times to properly assess their identity. Authors do not have doubts about their identification, and we have no reason to doubt the molecular laboratory pipeline. Thus, the unexpected clustering of these three DNA barcodes of C. transcaucasica with the sequences of C. inarmata remains a surprise.

Biology

During our expeditions, collected between 19 June and 1 August at an altitude between 1400 and 2275 m a.s.l.

Distribution

Caucasus ( Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia), Iran ( West Azerbaijan and East Azerbaijan provinces).