Griphophanes Grootaert & Meuffels

Ya, Igor, 2010, Discovery of Griphophanes Grootaert & Meuffels and Nepalomyia Hollis in the Afrotropical Region with a key to Afrotropical genera of Peloropeodinae (Diptera: Dolichopodidae), Zootaxa 2668, pp. 1-20 : 2

Griphophanes Grootaert & Meuffels

Griphophanes Grootaert & Meuffels, 1998: 191 (nom. nov. for Griphomyia Grootaert & Meuffels, 1997 , nec Hardy 1987) (subf. Peloropeodinae ). Type species: Griphomyia gravicaudata Grootaert & Meuffels, 1997 . Griphomyia Grootaert & Meuffels, 1997: 108 (in subf. Peloropeodinae ) (nec Hardy 1987). Type species: Griphomyia gravicaudata Grootaert & Meuffels, 1997 (original designation).

Remarks. Grootaert & Meuffels (1997) distinguished their new genus from other Peloropeodinae mainly by the presence of a distinct anal vein which runs parallel to the hind margin of the wing and a stalked hypopygium which lies free under the abdomen. Indeed, species of the type genus Peloropeodes Wheeler , as well as of Micromorphus Mik and Meuffelsia Grichanov have sessile hypopygium with very short segment 7. Nevertheless, some species of Peloropeodes and Micromorphus have weakly developed wing anal lobe (e.g., Grichanov 2000) and one of the species of Griphophanes described here has normal anal lobe. The type species was described with 5 dorsocentrals and uniseriate acrostichals, while both new Afrotropical species bear an additional small 6th dorsocentral seta anteriorly and biseriate acrostichals. It is worth noting that the Nearctic species of Peloropeodes have uniseriate acrostichals ( Bickel 2009), while Palearctic and Afrotropical species of the genus have biseriate acrostichals. Griphophanes is probably the only peloropeodine that lacks a carina at the inside of male abdominal segment eight ( Lim et al. 2010). The G. garambaensis sp. nov. is remarkable in having highly elongate hypopygial peduncle that developed independently in the subfamilies Medeterinae ( Bickel 1986) , Diaphorinae ( Grichanov 1998a) , Dolichopodinae (e.g., Grootaert & Meuffels 2001) and Peloropeodinae . Consequently, the genus Griphophanes is distinguishable from Peloropeodes at present by only male secondary sexual characters (see the key below).