Heterostylum ferrugineum (Fabricius)

Torretta, Juan P., Haedo, Joana P., Marrero, Hugo J. & Lamas, Carlos J. E., 2021, New austral-most records of the genus Heterostylum Macquart (Diptera Bombyiliidae) in Argentina, Zootaxa 4990 (3), pp. 583-586 : 583-584

Heterostylum ferrugineum (Fabricius)

Material examined. New records. ARGENTINA. Buenos Aires: Isla Martín García (34°11′S, 58°15′W), 5.xii.2013, J.P. Torretta (2 ♀, FAUBA) ; Isla Martín García , 25.ii.2014, J.P. Torretta (1 ♀, 1 ♂, MACN) ; Isla Martín García , 17.xii.2014, J.P. Torretta (3 ♀, FAUBA) .

Distribution. Argentina (Buenos Aires. New record), Brazil (Bahía, Ceará, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Roraima), Paraguay (Asunción), Puerto Rico (San Juan), American Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands (Road Town) ( Fig. 1 ).

Remarks. This species is recorded for the first time from Argentina, based on seven (six females and one male) individuals captured with sweep nets in sandy areas in the Natural and Historical Reserve of Isla Martín García ( Fig. 1 ). This small island (168 ha) lies at the confluence of the Uruguay and Paraná rivers and is an outcrop of the crystalline basement, with different vegetational types ( Ferretti et al. 2010). The specimens captured at this site expands the southern end of the species distribution more than 1,000 km. The females were captured hovering at 10–15 cm above the soil surface, possibly searching for nests of solitary bees.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Geographic distribution of Heterostylum ferrugineum (Fabricius) (circles) and H. hirsutum (Thunberg) (triangles). White symbols: new records; black symbols: previous distributions.