Lebanopeza, new genus

DIAGNOSIS: (male only). Eyes holoptic, dorsal facets larger; small prescutellum present; acrostichals in short uniserial row; wing with microtrichia over entire surface; C ends at apex of R 4+5 (vs. M 1); crossvein dm-cu (cell dm) absent, CuP curved; M entirely spectral, branches of M 1 -M 2 fork virtually symmetrical; dark bifid scales lacking on legs; metatarsomeres not expanded; male terminalia lateroflexed to right. Except for the lack of crossvein dm-cu and the faint M vein, all these features appear plesiomorphic for the Platypezidae .

TYPE SPECIES: L. azari, new species .

ETYMOLOGY: From Lebanon, the country of origin, and - peza (foot), a common suffix for generic names in the Platypezidae .

COMMENTS: Lebanopeza appears to be an extinct stem group to Microsania + Melanderomyia (fig. 27). It lacks at least four features that define these two extant genera (chars. 3, 16, 17, 18; table 2), but shares with them the loss of crossvein dm-cu (cell dm), a distinctly shortened Sc vein and somewhat shortened R 1, and reduction in the medial veins. In Melanderomyia M 2 is lost; in Microsania the base of M 1 is lost; in Lebanopeza the entire stem and fork of M 1 -M 2 is extremely faint and unsclerotized.

The wing of Lebanopeza is similar to Mauritulus sospes Mostovski, preserved as a compression (along with portions of the body) in shale from the Early Cretaceous of Eurasia (Mostovski, 1995a). Both genera have a slender wing; membrane densely covered with microtrichia; R 1 straight, relatively short; C definitely ( Lebanopeza) or apparently (Mauritulus) ending at the apex of R 4+5; M 1 -M 2 fork nearly symmetrical; and crossvein dm-cu (cell dm) absent. Lebanopeza differs from Mauritulus by having a shorter Sc cell (0.3× wing length, vs. 0.45×), cell cup with apical stem of CuP+A 1 (in Mauritulus these veins join virtually at the wing margin), and in having no metatarsomeres expanded (in Mauritulus the basitarsomere is slightly expanded).