Timia Wiedemann 1824

Galinskaya, Tatiana V., 2016, Two new species of the genus Timia and a redescription of Timiamongolica (Diptera, Ulidiidae), ZooKeys 615, pp. 119-141 : 120-121

Taxon classification Animalia Diptera Ulidiidae

Timia Wiedemann 1824

Type species.

Timia erythrocephala Pallas in Wiedemann, 1824 (by monotypy).

Diagnosis.

Yellow or black flies. Frons usually with dents and bumps, shiny or almost shiny, sometimes with white microtrichose areas. Antennal grooves deep, oval, well-separated by wide facial carina. Thorax and abdomen shining or shagreened, sometimes almost matt, sometimes with green metallic shine, often with microtrichose areas. Wing hyaline, in some species with dark cells bc, c, sc and apical spot. Male genitalia: epandrium subovoid; surstylus hook-like, sometimes with marked postero-dorsal lobe; cerci clearly bilobed; phallus long, coiled and partially flattened divided into two parts, with a pair of sclerotized taeniae ending approximately at its mid-length and another pair of taeniae beginning at phallus middle almost reaching phallus apex; phallus apical half bearing long membranous appendix ( “caecum”); distiphallus apex bowed and bearing numerous spurs, and “glans” formed by hooks or lobes surrounding gonopore. Surstylus hook-like, sometimes with marked postero-dorsal lobe. Cerci clearly bilobed. Female terminalia: aculeus moderately long and wide, with short oval cercal unit; three spherical spermathecae with smooth or micropapillose surface. Separation of Timia and Ulidia Meigen, 1826 is difficult. The characters used so far are mainly as follow: frons smooth (in Timia ) or dimpled (in Ulidia ) (with some exceptions), head and thorax microtrichose (in Timia ) or bare (in Ulidia , but some species assigned to Timia have shiny head and thorax, and Ulidia metope Kameneva, 2010 has frons widely microtrichose) ( Chen and Kameneva 2009; Kameneva 2010). In addition, species of the genus Ulidia always have entirely black bodies without yellow parts of thorax and abdomen.

Remarks.

Adult Timia , as well as many other ulidiids, are attracted to various organic residues (decaying plant tissue, animal corpses, excrements). In arid habitats, the surface of organic residues is quickly covered with a dried crust, under which semi-liquid substrate is preserved for a relatively long time. The proboscis of Timia has longitudinal rows of pointed outgrowths located on the labellum; flies make a hole in a crust with these appendages and then penetrate with long tubular appendage of the proboscis into it, absorbing semi-liquid substrate ( Zaitzev 1982).