Cephalia rufipes Meigen, 1826

Kameneva, E. P. & Korneyev, V. A., 2022, Identity Of Species Assigned To The Genus Cephalia (Diptera, Tephritoidea), Zoodiversity 56 (6), pp. 447-462 : 457-460

Cephalia rufipes Meigen, 1826 (figs 7–9)

Valid name. Cephalia rufipes Meigen, 1826 (Ulidiidae) .

Cephalia rufipes Meigen, 1826: 294 ; Becker, 1902: 230, remarks on the absence of the types in boththe Paris and Vienna collections; Schiner, 1864: Austria (Prater, the park on Danube islands in Vienna); Hennig, 1939: France, Germany, Italy, Spain; Soós, 1957: Hungary; Rohaček, 2006: Czech Republic ( Bohemia), Slovakia; van Aartsen & Beuk, 2002: The Netherlands; Kameneva, 2007: review of European material.

Myrmecomyia rufipes: Séguy, 1934

Cephalia nigripes Meigen, 1826: 294 ; Becker, 1902: 230; Séguy 1934: as “variation” of rufipes . After Williston also in North America, Virginia, to be confirmed.

Material. Type. Syntypes: Cephalia rufiipes : 1 ♀, [Klug, Berlin], 1 ♀: [ Austria, Megerle von Mühlfeld] (not located; not examined) . Holotype (?) ♀ Cephalia nigripes [ Germany:] “Aachen”, “Alte Sammlung”, “ Cephalia / nigripes / M. / v. 29 / 7 A” [paper square, ink handwriting] [ Baumhauer ] ( NHMW) ; holotype (?) ♀ Cephalia nigripes [ Country unknown]: “meigen \ 2442 / 40” [paper circle], “ Cephalia / nigripes”, “MNNH, Paris / ED2996”, [bottom labels:] “2247”, “ Cephalia / rufipes” [old paper rectangle, ink handwriting], “Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris ( France), Collection: Insects - Diptera (ED) Specimen MNHN-ED-ED2966” ( MNHNP) .

Non-type. Austria: “ Austria / coll. Egger ”, 1 Ơ, 1 ♀ “rufipes // det. Schiner ”; “Schin. 1869” ♀; “ Alte Sammlung ”, 19 specimens ( C. rufipes det. Schiner and Hendel); “ Coll. Hendel ”, “ ruficeps Mg. det. F. Hendel \ Myrmecomyia ”, 1 Ơ [dissected]; “ Coll. Hendel ”, ” ruficeps Mg. det. Hendel \ Neusiedler See, Juni”, 1 Ơ, 1 ♀ [dissected]; “ Bgst ”, “ruficeps / det. Bergenst [amm].”, 1 ♀ ( NHMW) ; Wien, 08.1861, “coll. H. Loew ”, 1 ♀; “ Austria, Brauer”, “coll. H. Loew ”, 1 ♀ [specimen heavily damaged by dermestids] ( MNKB) ; France: Rambuiett, 4.07.1900, 1 Ơ, 2.07.1946, 1 ♀ ( RBINH) ; “ Cephalia // rufipes // Lyon”, “rufipes // coll. Winthem ”, 1 ♀ ( NHMW) ; Pyrenées- Orientales, 610 m, Can Baills, 10km SW Thuir, 42.34N / 02.39E, 8.06.2007, 1 ♀ ( Merz ) ( MHNG) . France / Spain (?): “Pyrenaei Keitel”, “6626”, 1 ♀ (“rufipes / Meig. ”) [head missing] ( ZMHB) ; Germany: Karlsruhe, 30.07.1972, 1 ♀ ( Stritt ) ( SMNK) ; Spain: Pr. Cadiz, Hozgarganta-Tal bei Jimena 200m, 17.07.1979, 1 ♀ ( Schacht ) ( ZSSM) ; Pr. Salamanca, Villar de Ciervo , Las Coronas, 18.06– 8.07.1995, 1 ♀ (Tschorsnig) ( SMNS) ; Switzerland: “Basel Imhot / v. Roser Coll.”, 2 Ơ, 1 ♀ “ Myrmecomyia rufipes Mg. [det. Roser] ( SMNS) ; Israel: Har Hermon: Birket Hakar, 22.06.1971, 1 Ơ, 3 ♀ ( Freidberg ) ( TAUI; SIZK) .

Description: Head (fig. 8, c) including appendages, and thorax, scutellum and legs, all rusty red to reddish brown, widely shiny, except the frontal vitta dull in the middle of its length and orbits with narrow silvery microtrichose eye margins. Face straight in profile and conspicuously produced anteriorly, its upper and lower part (epistome) not separated by any depression or suture; subgenae (paired lateral extensions of face ventral of genae and separated from them by a suture from vibrissal angle to anterior tentorial pit) wide triangular, as high as gena itself. Clypeus moderately high. Antennal groove moderately shallow.

Anterior orbital seta hair-like, short; posterior orbital seta moderately long. Inner vertical seta strong, outer vertical seta 0.66× as long as inner vertical. Ocellar seta vestigial. Postocellar seta conspicuous, but short. Postocular setulae short, forming no regular row. Occipital setulae lateral of foramen spinulose, 3–4× as long as postocular setae; genal seta strong.

Antenna with short scape and pedicel, usually reddish or brownish yellow, flagellomere 1 about 4–5 times as long as wide, narrowed apically, brown to black, microtrichose; arista 3-segmented, yellow at base, apically dark brown, very short pubescent.

Palp enlarged, crescentric or subtriangular, brown to black, short black setulose and grey microtrichose, twice as high as clypeus. Prementum high, subshining, setulose. Labellum moderately short.

Thorax (figs 8, d–e), including scutellum, mostly shiny. Scutum medially shagreened, matt, finely silvery microtrichose between two rows of short dorsocentral setulae; two short brown to black submedian vittae separated by yellow or brown vitta between two rows of short acrostichal setulae almost reaching posteriorly the level of supra-alar setae. Prescutellar area widely matt and shagreened; acrostichal seta indistinct, hair-like; posterior dorsocentral and intra-alar setae weak and short, almost indistinct; 0 postpronotal, 0 anterior supra-alar, 1 posterior supra-alar and 1 postalar seta. Scutellum with 2 pairs of setae (basal shorter than half of apical scutellar seta). Pleura subshining, notopleural triangle and katepisternum faintly silvery microtrichose. Proepisternal seta absent; 1 anepisternal and 1 katepisternal setae moderately strong.

Legs (figs 8, a–b), long, reddish yellow to dark brown; tarsi, mid tibia and hind leg conspicuously darker; short black setulose; fore coxa whitish microtrichose; femora narrow; midtibia with 1 apicoventral seta.

Wing (figs 8, a–b, f) glossy with faint brownish-yellow tinge. Basicostal cell and base of costal cell brown; pterostigma dark brown to black. Vein R 1 setulose only in apical part. Veins R 4+5 and M 1 slightly divergent apically. Brown apical spot aligned to costa from apex of cell r 2+3 to m 1. Crossvein r-m at level of R 1 apex. Vein CuA slightly sinuate, posteroapical lobe of cell cua along vein CuA+CuP very short but conspicuous. Alula narrow, but present. Upper calypter narrow, white ciliate.

Abdomen subshining or shining black. Syntergite 1+2 with conspicuous constriction.

Male postabdomen. Epandrium (fig. 9, a) subglobose, with ventro-mesally directed surstylus bearing one moderately acute subapical prensiseta and group of 3–4 mesally directed prensisetae (“subcercal prensisetae”) at base of each surstylus. Hypandrium (fig. 9, b) as in most Otitini: almost symmetrical, with wide and moderately deep phallus guide dorsally forming moderately developed phallapodeme and anteriorly attached to large pregonites; each of the latter bearing 7–9 trichoid sensilla (“setulae”); postgonites (gonostyli) developed as two button-like sclerites at each side of basiphallus and bearing 5 trichoid sensilla. Phallus (fig. 9, d) directed to left side and coiled at rest in a membranous pouch at left side of postabdomen; basally with thicker and denser, and apically with longer, sparser and thinner spines (“acanths”); no glans: apex with gonopore, membranous and bare. Ejaculatory apodeme with moderately narrow “fan”sz, well expressed “shaft” and relatively small “foot” (fig. 9, c).

Female with shortened but exposed abdominal tergite 6, moderately long oviscape as long as tergite 5, and non-modified, rather wide aculeus with oval cercal unit bearing numerous trichoid sensilla. Three subspherical spermathecae with sparsely papillose surface.

Body 8–9 mm, wings 7–8 mm long.

D i s t r i b u t i o n. Middle and Southern Europe: from France and Spain to Slovakia and Austria; Israel (first record).

Remarks. Kameneva (2007) has already noted that Meigen (1826) described this species based on females, one of which he received from Mr Klug from Berlin and the other from Dr Megerle von Mühlfeld as collected in Austria; these specimens have not been located in the MNHNP, MNKB or NHMW collections. The female in Meigen’s collection ( MNHNP) placed under C. rufipes (No. 2247) does not meet the original description of that species; it has the mesonotum uniformly black. Becker (1902) also noted that it has entirely black legs (as in “ nigripes ”), but nevertheless marked it as a C. nigripes type specimen and considered it to be a male (sic!), which is obviously an error. The holotype female of C. nigripes “caught by Mr Baumhauer in August at Lustberge near Aachen” ( Meigen, 1826) is believed to be in the NHMW collection, but its label differs from the original data in the month of collecting; the ♀ of “ Cephalia nigripes ” in MNHNP instead has no obvious geographic label indicating that it is from Aachen and can hardly be its holotype. The specimen from Lyon (Winthem’s coll., NHMW) is certainly a non-type specimen.

The records from North America ( U.S.A.: Arizona, New Mexico) as C. rufipes (see: Steyskal , 1965; Wallace, 2021: USNM 1396541 ) are very probably misidentified; detailed comparison of morphological characters and COI barcoding mtDNA sequences of specimens from North America and Siberia is needed in order to clarify whether they belong to different taxa .