Tephritis Latreille 1804

Korneyev, Severyn V. & Korneyev, Valery A., 2019, Revision of the Old World species of the genus Tephritis (Diptera, Tephritidae) with a pair of isolated apical spots, Zootaxa 4584 (1), pp. 1-73 : 5-6

Tephritis Latreille 1804

Diagnosis (modified from Merz 1994). Head and eye laterally slightly higher than long; frons bare or with a few fine setulae above lunule; face very slightly concave, antennal grooves almost inconspicuous; labellum capitate rather than geniculate; 2 pairs of frontal (a few New World species with an additional short seta) and 2 pairs of orbital setae present; postocellar setae white and convergent; postocular setae partly white, partly black, rarely all white; scape white setulose, pedicel black setulose; flagellomere 1 about 1.5 × as long as wide; scutum from ochreous to dark grey microtrichose, sometimes with 3–5 darker longitudinal vittae; setulae white, very rarely black; posterior notopleural seta white, rarely black; remaining setae black, rarely anepimeral seta whitish; scutellum with 2 pairs of setae, apical 1/2 to 1/3 as long as basal; upper and lower calypters subequal; vein R 4+5 usually bare dorsally, ventrobasally in most species with 1–15 setulae; wing pattern commonly with grid or net consisting of numerous smaller and larger hyaline spots separated by dark pattern, as a rule with 3 larger dark regions: around pterostigma, around vein dm-cu and around apex of vein R 2+3; wing apex either with apical fork (most species), or with 2 isolated dark spots at apices of veins R 4+5 and M (complex of species considered in this paper), or with entire apical crossband (see Korneyev 2013), or very rarely, with entirely hyaline apex. Abdomen covered with unicolorous microtrichia, without darker spots; setulae white or mixed white and black, rarely entirely black. Male genitalia: preglans bare (very rarely with spines); glans weakly sclerotized, without sculpture or spines inside basal half. Female genitalia: oviscape dorsally black or brown setulose, laterodorsally and ventrally usually white setulose, rarely entirely dark setulose; aculeus usually rounded or incised apically, rarely with sharp subapical steps, very rarely barbed or serrated. 2 papillose spermathecae of various lengths.

Monophyly of the genus Tephritis is based on a few synapomorphies of low weight, such as the combination of 2 frontal setae (also in Heringina and Austrotephritis ) and lack of sculpture / spines inside basal half of the glans (spinulose or sculptured in Capitites and Austrotephritis ), in combination with such symplesiomorphies (with other genera of Tephritis—Trupanea group of genera) as 2 pairs of scutellar setae and lack of the acrophallus (see also Merz 1980); phylogenetic analysis based on nucleotide sequences of five genes (S. Korneyev et al., in prep.) also highly supports monophyly of the genus as a whole.

According to the preliminary results of the molecular phylogenetic analysis, the species with a pair of isolated apical spots on the wing form an artificial, polyphyletic complex, with its species belonging in different distant mono- or paraphyletic lineages (S. Korneyev et al., in prep.), each associated with host plants belonging in different tribes.

Tephritis bardanae (Schrank 1803) , T. ghissarica new species, T. hendeliana Hering 1944 , T. hyoscyami ( Linnaeus 1758) , T. kyrghyzica new species, T. postica ( Loew 1844) , T. tridentata ( Loew 1844) , and T. zernyi ( Hendel 1927) belong in the cluster of species feeding in flowerheads of different genera and species of the tribe Cardueae . Of them, T. bardanae / T. zernyi , T. ghissarica / T. kyrghyzica , and T. hendeliana / T. hyoscyami are believed to be pairs of closely related sister species, whereas each of these lineages does not show close relationships with the other mentioned species or lineages of this complex.

Tephritis arsenii Korneyev, Khaghaninia, Mohamadzade Namin & Zarghani 2015 belongs in a small lineage of the species associated with the plants of Senecioneae, whereas T. kogardtauica ( Hering 1944) and T. valida ( Loew 1858) belong in another clade of species infesting the plants of Inuleae; both lineages nested inside the previous cluster.

Tephritis stictica Loew 1862 is a single species in the large cluster of species infesting flower heads of Anthemideae .

Tephritis dilacerata ( Loew 1846) , T. formosa ( Loew 1844) , T. kovalevi Korneyev & Kameneva 1990 , and T. youngiana new species form a clearly monophyletic lineage, with the first three species associated with Sonchus spp., and the fourth with Youngia (sometimes considered a synonym of Crepis ); the additional species, T. crepidis Hendel 1927 , T. conyzifoliae Merz 1992 and T. truncata apparently are the members of a larger, monophyletic or paraphyletic complex of species associated with plants of the tribe Cichorieae ; however, the latter three species are apparently only distantly related to the dilacerata–youngiana lineage.

Detailed phylogenetic relationships within Tephritis based on molecular data will be considered elsewhere (S. Korneyev et al. in prep.).