Egle brevicornis (Zetterstedt, 1838)

Michelsen, Verner, 2009, Revision of the willow catkin flies, genus Egle Robineau-Desvoidy (Diptera: Anthomyiidae), in Europe and neighbouring areas, Zootaxa 2043 (1), pp. 1-76 : 21-23

The Egle brevicornis section

This section is presently defined more broadly than originally proposed by Griffiths (2003), as it also includes his Egle pilitibia section.

Included in the Egle brevicornis section are two well defined species groups, the Egle brevicornis species group with five species and the E. pilitibia species group with two species. One further species, E. asiatica Hennig, 1976 , was described from a male from ‘Mandschurei, Tschen’ [= China: Heilongjiang: Tschen 21km SE of Harbin] and has been recorded also from Liaoning ( Hua 2006). For illustrations of the male terminalia see Hennig (1976: 938, text fig. 759, plate figs. 1183, 1188, 1198) and Fan et al. (1988: 76, figs. 176–178). Griffiths (2003) tentatively considered E. asiatica most closely related to species of the present E. brevicornis species group, but I prefer to keep it as a species sola in the present Egle brevicornis section, because a closest relationship with the E. pilitibia section seems equally credible.

The Egle brevicornis section appears, notably in the structure of the labella, male terminalia and female oviscapt, to be overall more plesiomorphic than the following E. minuta section. However, I trust this section to be monophyletic, although the assumed autapomorphies given below have not been checked in all species including the problematic E. asiatica : (1) Male abdomen with spiracles II–V lying in pleural membrane beneath lateral margins of respective tergites; (2) female parafrontals with (3)–4(–5) instead of 3 orbital setae; and (3) female femora ventrally, on basal half or more, covered in very dense, fine setulae (often harbouring large quantities of pollen grains).