Pseudolycoriella bispina, in Mohrig & Jaschhof, 1999

Köhler, Arne, 2019, The genus Pseudolycoriella Menzel & Mohrig, 1998 (Diptera, Sciaridae) in New Zealand, Zootaxa 4707 (1), pp. 1-69 : 20

Pseudolycoriella bispina complex

The following six species form the Psl. bispina complex. Common to them is a small body size, and presence of lateral lobes on the tegmen. The phylogeny of this complex is depicted in Figure 61 .

Discussion. This complex can be assigned to the Psl. bruckii group. Nevertheless, due to its small body size and the two spines on the gonostylus the species of the Psl. bispina complex resemble the Psl. longicostalis group from Papua New Guinea (Mohrig 2013). Furthermore, some of those species share the very robust bristles arranged in a posteriodorsal row on the hind tibia. However, the two apicolateral lobes on the tegmen of Psl. bispina and the other species of this complex cannot be found in the Psl. longicostalis group. As an additional character Mohrig (2013) emphasised that these species have very robust bristles in the posteriodorsal row on the hind tibia, which could also be found in the Psl. bispina complex, except in Psl. mahanga . Nevertheless, all these species are not assigned to the Psl. longicostalis group. The key characteristics like the conspicuous row of robust bristles on the hind tibia surely result from convergent miniaturisations of two independent stem species with a typical Psl. bruckii group habitus.

Conspicuous apicolateral lobes can be found in other Pseudolycoriella species: for instance, Psl. commoda Mohrig ( Pseudolycoriella triacanthula group; Mohrig 2013), and Psl. microphalli Mohrig and Psl. bitorquia Mohrig (Psl. quadrispinosa group; Mohrig 2013). A confusion of those three species with Psl. bispina and its close relatives is not expected, because all of the Papua New Guinea species have three gonostylar spines and remarkable dorsal teeth on the claws. Among the New Zealand species, Psl. cavatica, Psl. kaikoura , and the species of the Psl. jejuna complex have similar lateral lobes on the tegmen, but these species differ either by the reduction of the number of gonostylar spines or the shape of the gonostylus together with stout flagellomeres. Although the monophyly of the Psl. bispina complex is highly supported by genetic data, no unequivocal apomorphic characters could be identified.

Figures

FIGURE 61. Phylogenetic tree of the New Zealand Pseudolycoriella species inferred from Maximum Likelihood analysis based on three concatenated genes (COI, 16S, and 28S; total length 3,053 bp) applying the model GTR+F+R4. Ultrafast bootstrap values (UFBoot; 1,000 replicates) are given if these values are greater than or equal to 95%. Intraspecific UFBoot values are not specified. Pseudolycoriella species without available genetic data are also inserted and assigned to a species complex according to the morphological results.