Oxysarcodexia amorosa ( Schiner, 1868 )

Souza, Carina Mara De, Pape, Thomas & Thyssen, Patricia Jacqueline, 2020, Oxysarcodexia Townsend, 1917 (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) - a centennial conspectus, Zootaxa 4841 (1), pp. 1-126 : 19-21

Oxysarcodexia amorosa ( Schiner, 1868)

( Figs 19–21 )

Sarcophaga amorosa Schiner, 1868: 314 ; Brazil. Holotype male in NMW (not examined). [Described from “Ein Männchen” ( Schiner 1868: 314), and Aldrich (1930: 26) examined “One male undoubted type”.]

Diagnosis. Male. Length 7.0–8.0 mm. Postocular plate with pale golden pollinosity. Ocellar bristles weakly developed. Thorax and abdomen with golden pollinosity, which is more intense on T5; T5 partly with golden pollinosity. Two well-differentiated posterior and 1–3 smaller anterior post-sutural dorsocentrals. Apical scutellar bristles present. Legs brownish. T3 with 3 pairs of lateral marginal bristles, T4 with 1 pair of median marginal and 2 pairs of lateral marginal bristles. ST5 with deep median cleft with margins almost parallel and pilosity on arms. Cercus straight in lateral view, with expanded obliquely cut apex and dorsal subapical barb. Cercus with bristles ventrally over full length. Cerci with distal third narrower than middle part in posterior view; diverging. Pregonite with expanded base gradually narrowing to apex; unicolorous. Postgonite with expanded base and sudden narrowing at apex; unicolorous. Distiphallus with margin of ventroapical concavity smooth, rounded apex and straight dorsal outline. Vesica symmetrical, with lateral lobes and rounded median projection of main branch; distal lobes well developed, with filaments long, tapering, sclerotized, with spines on ventral surface.

Remarks. Phenotypic variability in males from different populations has been reported in the literature for this species ( Lopes 1973b). Oxysarcodexia amorosa is similar to O. inflata Lopes, 1975 , especially in its color, and to O. similata Lopes & Tibana, 1987 and O. xanthosoma ( Aldrich, 1916) , differing in the shape of the distiphallus (mainly in the ventral and apical parts) and of the distal part of the vesica ( Lopes 1975c; Lopes & Tibana 1987). The ventroapical concavity of the distiphallus in these four species is deepest in O. amorosa ( Fig. 20 ) and least developed in O. similata ( Fig. 249 ). In O. xanthosoma , the ventroapical margin of this concavity is narrower ( Fig. 285 ) than in the other species. The apex of the distiphallus is serrated ventroapically in O. inflata ( Fig. 146 ), and it is more sharp-angled in O. amorosa and O. inflata than in O. similata and O. xanthosoma ( Figs 20 , 146 , 249 , 285 ). The shape of the cercus and phallus of O. amorosa also present similarities to O. berlai and O. graminifolia sp. n. The main differences can be observed in the vesica, which in O. graminifolia sp. n. is more spinous and lacks the basal portion of the distal lobes found in the others (including O. similata and O. xanthosoma ), and in the ventroapical area of the distiphallus, which lacks the cleft visible in lateral view in O. amorosa , O. similata and O. xanthosoma . Morphological variation of O. xanthosoma , especially in the shape of the distal part of the cercus and apical part of the distiphallus, but also in the intensity of the abdominal pollinosity, as pointed out by Lopes (1975c), may lead to confusion with O. amorosa . Lopes (1946b) pointed out that one of the differences between O. amorosa and O. xanthosoma is that the latter shows a curved cercus; however, in the material examined, specimens of both species presented a straight cercus in lateral view. The female of O. amorosa has T7 divided into two plates ( Tibana & Mello 1985).

Distribution. NEARCTIC. Mexico (San Luis Potosí, Sonora). NEOTROPICAL. Brazil (Amapá, Amazonas, Bahia, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Roraima, Santa Catarina, São Paulo), Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana, Mexico (Jalisco), Panama, Peru.

Biology. Oxysarcodexia amorosa has been reared from dog, felid and human feces ( Lopes 1973b; D’Almeida 1994), an unspecified dead mammal ( Dodge 1968), and fish heads and bones ( Lopes 1973b). It has also been reared successfully in the laboratory ( Lopes 1973b) and on dead shrimps under non-natural conditions ( D’Almeida 1989). In the laboratory, larvae of this species matured in 3 days and adults emerged after 12 days using curdled milk as food, showing a preference for low humidity ( Lopes 1973b). In a study of the bionomy of O. amorosa under laboratory conditions (27 ± 1°C, relative humidity 50 ± 10%, 12 h of photophase and ground beef as rearing substrate), the duration of the larval stage ranged from 3–6 days with 76% larval viability, the pupal stage lasted 9– 11 days with 88% viability, and the total time of development (from L1 to adults) was 12–16 days with 67% viability ( Xavier et al. 2015). The species has been collected from feces of humans and other vertebrates, dead fish and crabs, other dead marine animals (e.g., sardines), rotten S. comosa , rotten banana mixed with brown sugar, fermented fruit, chicken viscera, chicken liver, rat and mouse carcasses, pig carcasses, rotten liver from a non-identified vertebrate, rotten beef lung, rotten bovine spleen, and dead squid ( Lopes 1973b, 1975a; Mendes & Linhares 1993; Pamplona et al. 2000; Oliveira et al. 2002; Barbosa et al. 2009, Sousa et al. 2011; Rosa et al. 2011; Ramírez-Mora et al. 2012; Alves et al. 2014; Barbosa et al. 2014; Oliveira-Costa et al. 2014; Vairo et al. 2014; Barbosa et al. 2015; Xavier et al. 2015; Carmo & Vasconcelos 2016; Sousa et al. 2015, 2016; Vasconcelos et al. 2016; Barbosa et al. 2017; Valverde-Castro et al. 2017; Ernesto et al. 2018; Lopes et al. 2018; Leite-Júnior et al. 2019). It has been reported from Brazilian Caatinga ( Alves et al. 2014; Vasconcelos et al. 2016; Ernesto et al. 2018), Cerrado ( Rosa et al. 2011; Leite-Júnior et al. 2019), Amazon forest ( Sousa et al. 2011), Atlantic forest ( Lopes et al. 2018), humid tropical rainforest ( Vairo et al. 2014), coastal habitat ( Barbosa et al. 2015, 2017), insular lands ( Carmo & Vasconcelos 2016), marshlands and mangrove areas ( Sousa et al. 2016), urban areas ( Mendes & Linhares 1993; Oliveira et al. 2002; Barbosa et al. 2009; Oliveira-Costa et al. 2014), areas of degraded vegetation ( Pamplona et al. 2000), and in forest, urban and rural areas of Colombia ( Ramírez-Mora et al. 2012; Valverde-Castro et al. 2017). Oxysarcodexia amorosa has been reported in association with the bloated stage of decomposition of an unburned pig carcasses and with the post-decay stage of a burned one ( Oliveira-Costa et al. 2014). Lopes et al. (2018) reported O. amorosa as associated with the butyric fermentation and dry decay stages of decomposition of pig carcasses. In the Brazilian state of Maranhão, O. amorosa was classified as accidental and rare ( Sousa et al. 2015). In Itamaracá, a continental island (Pernambuco state, Brazil), this species was similarly considered an accidental record, collected only in an area of low anthropogenic impact ( Carmo & Vasconcelos 2016). Oxysarcodexia amorosa is considered useful for biomonitoring, revealing anthropogenic impacts due to its preference for modified habitats such as clearings ( Sousa et al. 2014). Larvae of O. amorosa were involved in a case of auricular myiasis in São João de Meriti, Rio de Janeiro ( Figueiredo et al. 2002).

Material examined. [ ♂] Angra dos Reis; E. do Rio; Brasil / Det. H. S. Lopes; 10.10.72 / NRMDIPT 0014218 [ NRM] // [♂] Angra dos Reis, E. do Rio, Brasil / H. S. Lopes 6.X.71 / Oxysarcodexia amorosa (Schiner) Det. H. S. Lopes ♂ [ MNRJ] // [♂] BRASIL: Mato Grosso do Sul. Dois Irmãos do Buriti 27-30.XII.89 R. Tibana. col. / Oxysarcodexia amorosa (Schiner) Det. R. Tibana [ MNRJ] // [♂] [Brazil] S. José da Lagoa Minas 10.II.39 Martins e Lopes / Oxysarcodexia amorosa Schiner : 1868. Lopes. det 1944 [ MNRJ] .

Figures

FIGURES 15–24. Oxysarcodexia spp., males. 15–18. Oxysarcodexia alectoris sp. n., holotype (French Guiana, Montsinery, NRM). 15. Habitus, lateral view. 16. Terminalia, lateral view. 17. Terminalia, posterior view. 18. Terminalia, ventroapical view. 19–21. Oxysarcodexia amorosa (Schiner) (Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Angra dos Reis, MNRJ). 19. Habitus, lateral view. 20. Terminalia, lateral view. 21. Terminalia, posterior view. 22–24. Oxysarcodexia angrensis (Lopes) (Brazil, São Paulo, Campinas, LIE). 22. Habitus, lateral view. 23. Terminalia, lateral view. 24. Terminalia, posterior view.

FIGURES 244–253. Oxysarcodexia spp., males. 244–247. Oxysarcodexia sarcinata Lopes (244, 245: Costa Rica, Alajuela Province, NHMD; 246, 247: Colombia, Antioquia, Caldas, La Clara, CE-TdeA). 244. Habitus, lateral view. 245. Terminalia, lateral view. 246. Terminalia, anterior view. 247. Terminalia, posterior view. 248–250. Oxysarcodexia similata Lopes & Tibana (Costa Rica, Cartago, Turrialba, MNRJ). 248. Habitus, lateral view. 249. Terminalia, lateral view. 250. Terminalia, posterior view. 251–253. Oxysarcodexia simplicoides (Lopes) (Brazil, Espírito Santo, Linhares, MNRJ). 251. Habitus, lateral view. 252. Terminalia, lateral view. 253. Terminalia, posterior view.

FIGURES 284–292. Oxysarcodexia spp., males. 284–286. Oxysarcodexia xanthosoma (Aldrich) (Ecuador, Napo Province, NRM). 284. Habitus, lateral view. 285. Terminalia, lateral view. 286. Terminalia, posterior view. 287–289. Oxysarcodexia xon (Dodge), holotype (Panama, Canal Zone, Barro Colorado Island, UKAL). 287. Habitus, lateral view. 288. Terminalia, lateral view (flipped horizontally to facilitate comparisons). 289. Terminalia, posterior view. 290–292. Oxysarcodexia zayasi Dodge (Cuba, Las Villas Province, Trinidad, MNRJ). 290. Habitus, lateral view. 291. Terminalia, lateral view. 292. Terminalia, posterior view. Figs 287–289 by M. Engel (UKAL, now AMNH) and C. Chaboo (UKAL).

FIGURES 139–147. Oxysarcodexia spp., males. 139–141. Oxysarcodexia grandis Lopes (Colombia, Antioquia, Medellín, Cola del Zorro, CE-TdeA). 139. Habitus, lateral view. 140. Terminalia, lateral view. 141. Terminalia, posterior view. 142–144. Oxysarcodexia ibera Dufek & Mulieri (Argentina, MACN). 142. Habitus, lateral view. 143. Terminalia, lateral view. 144. Terminalia, posterior view. 145–147. Oxysarcodexia inflata Lopes, paratype (Brazil, Maranhão, Rosário, Igarapé Paraqueú, MNRJ). 145. Habitus, lateral view. 146. Terminalia, lateral view. 147. Terminalia, posterior view. Figures 142–144 by P.R. Mulieri (MACN).