Planetella grandis ( Meigen, 1804 )

Ševčík, Jan, Hippa, Heikki, Burdíková, Nikola, Sopuch, Kryštof, Skuhravá, Marcela & Bruun, Hans Henrik, 2023, Integrative taxonomy of Central European Planetella (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) indicates high species diversity, intraspecific variation and low host specificity, Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 63 (2), pp. 413-450 : 443

Planetella grandis ( Meigen, 1804)

Cecidomyia grandis Meigen, 1804: 39 . Type locality: Germany. Type material. SYNTYPEs: 1 J 3 ♀♀ (coll. MNHN Paris).

Comments. The original description consists of a short paragraph, stating that this is the largest species known to Meigen, with thorax dark greyish-brown, abdomen blackish brown, lighter on margins of tergites, reddish brown legs, and dark brown halteres. The only male was collected in May in a forest. Later, MEIGEN (1818) mentioned that he caught females in large quantities on a moist forest meadow in May. The size of the male specimen is given as ‘3 Linien’. Linien is 1/12 of inch, which means body length (2.54/12)*3 = 0.64 cm = 6.4 mm.

The high-resolution photographs of the type specimens are available at the web pages of MNHN Paris (https:// science.mnhn.fr/taxon/species/planetella/grandis). The male type (No. MNHN-ED-ED849) is without head and without the apical half of the abdomen. MORGE (1975) provided colour plates of the types of Meigen and P. grandis is figured as a large dark brown species with 12 binodose flagellomeres. This could possibly be in concordance with P. hlisnikovskyi sp. nov. described above, but the coloration of the scutum is different, more dark and glossy blackish brown in P. hlisnikovskyi while principally yellowish brown with three distinct longitudinal stripes in P. grandis , according to the photo of the type. The eyes of P. hlisnikovskyi are broadly separated while this character state is unclear for P. grandis .