Ablabesmyia Johannsen

Niitsuma, Hiromi, 2013, Revision of the Japanese Ablabesmyia (Diptera: Chironomidae: Tanypodinae), with descriptions of three new species, Zootaxa 3664 (4), pp. 479-504 : 480-481

Genus Ablabesmyia Johannsen

Ablabesmyia Johannsen, 1905: 135 ; Goetghebuer 1936: 24; Freeman 1955: 35 (as subgenus of Pentaneura ); Fittkau 1962: 416; Beck & Beck 1966: 318; Roback 1971: 354; Harrison 1978: 76; Oliver & Roussel 1983: 41; Murray & Fittkau 1989: 42. Type species: Tipula monilis Linnaeus , by subsequent designation of Johannsen (1907: 400).

Isoplastus Skuse, 1889: 279 (preoccupied). Type species: Isoplastus notabilis Skuse , by subsequent designation of Coquillett (1910: 556).

Remarks. Generic diagnoses were given by Fittkau (1962), Beck & Beck (1966), Roback (1971), Saether (1977), Harrison (1978) and Murray & Fittkau (1989) for the adult; Fittkau (l. c.), Roback (1985) and Fittkau & Murray (1986) for the pupa; and Fittkau (l. c.), Oliver & Roussel (1983), Fittkau & Roback (1983), Roback (1985), Kowalyk (1985) and Epler (2001) for the larva.

The adults of Ablabesmyia are separable from those of all other genera in Tanypodinae by the combination of the mottled wing, the banded legs and the male hypopygium with an aedeagal complex consisting of sclerotized or membranous lobes and filamentous appendages on the gonocoxite, and a cochleariform apex and a megaseta on the gonostylus.

Within the tribe Pentaneurini , a bulbous thoracic horn occurs in pupae of Ablabesmyia and Guttipelopia . However, they can be separated from each other by the basal lobe of the thoracic horn, which is small, tuberculate and dome-shaped in Ablabesmyia , and large thorn-like in Guttipelopia . The pupal thoracic membrane is smooth in Ablabesmyia , while granulose in Guttipelopia .

In the larva, the basal segment of maxillary palp is subdivided and the ring organ is situated between the sclerotized parts. The tanypodine Paramerina may also have a divided maxillary palp (not in P. togavicea (Sasa et Okazawa)) , but may be separated by the different arrangement of the cephalic setae (see Kowalyk 1985).

Four subgenera, Ablabesmyia Johannsen , Karelia Roback , Sartaia Roback and Asayia Roback , are currently recognized (Roback 1971, 1983, 1985; Murray & Fittkau 1989; Oliveira et al. 2008).