Manota pacifica Edwards

Hippa, Heikki, 2007, The genus Manota Williston (Diptera: Mycetophilidae) in Melanesia and Oceania, Zootaxa 1502, pp. 1-44 : 43

Manota pacifica Edwards

Manota pacifica Edwards, 1928: 30 .

For description, see Edwards (1928).

Discussion. M. pacifica was described from one male from Samoa, Savaii: Safune, rain forest above 2000 ft., which is also the only record of the species. I have not studied this holotype, but Edwards’ (1928) description with a good illustration of the hypopygium is quite enough to establish the identity of the species. The hypopygium of M. pacifica is similar to that of M. hamulata , M. bicuspis , M. parilis , M. evexa , M. orthacantha , M. pentacantha , and M. sicula . It is distinguished from all of these except M. sicula by the dorsal apicomesial lobe of gonocoxa, which is bilobate. The lobes in M. sicula and M. pacifica differ from each other so that the apical sub-lobes are approximately equal in size in M. pacifica whereas in M. sicula the more posterior one is much longer. Furthermore, M. pacifica differs from M. sicula by its simple gonostylus with all the setae much shorter than the gonostylus, whilst in M. sicula the gonostylus is unusually complicated, with several lobes, and basomesially and apicolaterally has setae which are as long as or longer than the gonostylus. In Edwards’ (1928) drawing there appear to be two setae apicolaterally on stergite 9, which are reminiscent of the three strong setae in approximately the same position in M. sicula . The gonostylus of M. pacifica is similar to that of M. parilis . The hypoproct resembles that of M. pentacantha in having setae only on the lateral marginal area, but differs in being broad, not unusually narrow as in M. pentacantha . The character of the parastylar lobe is not quite clear from Edwards’ (1928) drawing: it seems to be rather large, probably flat, and parallel with the mesial gonocoxal margin, not very different from that of M. parilis and M. bicuspis . It can be rather safely assumed that in M. pacifica the anepisternum, preepisternum 2, laterotergite and episternum 3 are setose as in all the species that share a similar structure of the hypopygium.