Ptychoptera staryi Dvorak , Obona & Manko, 2023

Dvorak, Libor, Fogasova, Katarina, Obona, Jozef, Toeroek, Edina & Manko, Peter, 2023, Two new Ptychoptera Meigen, 1803 (Diptera, Ptychopteridae) from the Western Palaearctic, ZooKeys 1166, pp. 91-102 : 91

Ptychoptera staryi Dvorak, Obona & Manko sp. nov.

Figs 4 , 5

Type material.

Holotype: 1 ♂: Bulgaria, Rhodopes, Yundola, 1 300 m a. s. l., 42°3'47"N, 23°51'17"E, 30.VI.2016, leg. M. Barták et Š. Kubík.

Description.

Male. Head: Frons, vertex, and occiput black, mouthparts including palpi pale yellow, scape and pedicel yellowish orange, antennal flagellomeres greyish.

Thorax: Predominantly black with silvery pubescent pleurae. Pronotum, epimeron 3 and metanotum 3 yellow. Fore and mid coxae and trochanters yellow, hind coxae brownish black basally, yellow apically, coxae also yellow. Almost all legs are missing. Halteres whitish yellow with a darker knob.

Wing length 12 mm (Fig. 4b ). Wing with yellowish veins and infuscated spots on fork vein Rs+R, all cross-veins, end of R1 vein up to its fork with R2 vein, on fork vein R4+R5 and on fork vein M1+M2. Legs: femur pale, darker in apical ¹⁄5, almost black on extreme apex; tibia pale brown in basal ½, darker apically and almost black on extreme apex; tarsomere 1 almost black, tarsomeres 2 and 3 dark brown, tarsomeres 4 and 5 pale brown.

Abdomen: Tergum 1, tergum 2, apical ¹⁄5 of tergum 3, almost whole tergum 4 except base, and whole terga 5-7 black; sternum 1 black, sternum 2 brown, sterna 5-7 black; the remainder orange yellow.

Male genitalia: similar to P. incognita . Epandrial clasper slightly curved outwards with simple obtuse apex; anterior projection of ventromesal lobe sharp, posterior projection bow-shaped backwards; space between both projections is rounded, almost semi-circular. Gonocoxite and gonostylus: apical process of paramere with a U-shaped dark structure with thick edges; paramere base rounded, convex; width to height ratio of dorsal gonocoxal lobe 0.5; dorsal gonocoxal lobe with dense tiny dark hairs. Aedeagus: sides of lateral ejaculatory process distinctly convex, basal projections markedly convergent; transition to lateral ejaculatory process smooth, undulate. Hypandrium: width to length ratio 1.2; apex of hypogynial valves start under basal division of hypandrium. See also differential diagnosis.

Female. Unknown.

Etymology.

The name is dedicated to our colleague Jaroslav Starý and his life jubilee. (Jaroslav discovered the holotype of new species in his own material and provided it for the description).

Differential diagnosis.

The new species is very similar to P. incognita Török, Kolcsár & Keresztes, 2015 (see also Table 2 ). After comparing the holotype of P. staryi sp. nov. with individuals of P. incognita (material used in Török et al. 2015: 2 individuals from Bulgaria, 17 individuals from Romania), we found that a diagnosis was possible on the basis of differences in male genitalia (Fig. 5 , marked with arrows), namely: (i) shape of the plate on ventral parts of epandrium is of a different shape and orientated at a different angle in P. staryi ; (ii) chitinisation (sclerotisation) of the proximo-lateral processes of the gonocoxite is not developed and these processes are light coloured in P. staryi in contrast to P. incognita with strong chitinisation and dark colouration; (iii) the hairs of margins of gonocoxite, gonostylus, and epandrium are much less dense and finer in contrast to P. incognita (not visible in Fig. 5 ).

Figures

Figure 4. Ptychoptera staryi sp. nov. a habitus of male, lateral view b wing.

Figure 5. Epandrium, gonocoxite and gonostylus, and hypandrium of P. staryi sp. nov., P. incognita, and P. albimana. Abbreviations: ECP = epandrial clasper, EL = epandrial lobe, EPI = epiproct, GBM = medial lobe of basal lobe of gonostylus, GCT = gonocoxite, GAS = apical stylus of gonostylus, GAT = tertiary lobe of apical stylus of gonostylus, PPA = apical process of paramere, HBD = basal division of hypandrium, HMW = membranous window of terminal division of hypandrium, HTD = terminal division of hypandrium.