Borboroides tonnoiri, McAlpine, 2007

McAlpine, DK, 2007, Review of the Borboroidini or Wombat Flies (Diptera: Heteromyzidae), with Reconsideration of the Status of Families Heleomyzidae and Sphaeroceridae, and Descriptions of Femoral Gland-baskets, Records of the Australian Museum 59, pp. 143-219 : 171-173

Borboroides tonnoiri n.sp.

Figs 51 –57

Material examined. HOLOTYPE.?, New South Wales : Black Springs fossicking area, Vulcan State Forest, c. 27 km SSW of Oberon, 4.v.2003, B.J.D. ( AM K219746 ). Mounted on micropin through polyporus . PARATYPES. New South Wales : 9??, same data as holotype ( AM) ; 27??, 11!!, Mount Wilson [Blue Mountains], April, May, June 1957 –2004, D.K.M., B.J.D. ( AM, MV, BM) ; 1!, Mount York , Blue Mountains, July 1986, D.K.M., B. J.M. ( AM) ; 1!, Mount Boyce , Blue Mountains, May 1967, D.K.M. ( AM) ; 1!, Hampton , Aug. 1932, F.H.T. ( AM) ; 13??, Rudy’s Road turnoff, 15 km N of Jenolan, April 2004, B.J.D. ( AM, USNM) ; 4??, Kanangra Road , 9.2 and 14.2 km S of Oberon-Jenolan Caves road junction, April, Aug. 2002 –2004, B.J.D. ( AM) ; 2??, 2 mi. [c. 3 km] SW of Tumorrama , June 1964, G.L.B. ( AM) ; 1?, Whiskers , 7 km WNW of Hoskinstown, Queanbeyan district, May 1991, M.S.U. ( ANIC) ; 6??, Clyde Mountain , west slope, May 1965, D.H.C., Z.R.L. ( ANIC) ; 28??, 3!!, Mongarlowe River , Clyde Mountain, May 1965, D.H.C. ( ANIC) ; 1!, Kunama , Batlow district, Aug. 1961, D.H.C. ( ANIC) ; 2??, 2!!, Alpine Creek , Kiandra, March, Aug. 1961 –1962, D.H.C. ( ANIC) . Australian Capital Territory : 52??, 40!!, Mount Coree, Brindabella Range, April 1968, D.H.C. ( ANIC) ; 7??, 12!!, Bull’s Head , Brindabella Range, April 1968 –1972, D.H.C., D.K.M. ( AM, ANIC, UQ) ; 1?, Black Mountain , Canberra, May 1968, I.F.C. ( ANIC) ; 1?, 1!, Honeysuckle Creek , May 1985, I.D.N., J.C.C. ( ANIC) ; 7??, 4!!, Blundell’s , April 1930, 1931, A.L.T., L.F.G. ( ANIC) ; 1?, Snowy Flats , Brindabella Range, March 1977, G.D. ( UQ) .

Other material. Victoria: 1!, Mount Donna Buang, near summit, Warburton district , April 2003, B.J.D., D.K.M. ( AM) .

Description (male, female). Moderately elongate largely blackish fly; size large for the genus.

Coloration. Head tawny-yellow; posterior part of postfrons and only c. upper half of occipital region blackish; postfrons extensively pruinescent, distinctly shining only on zone laterad of each posterior ocellus. Antenna tawnyyellow; segment 3 extensively suffused with grey-brown; arista dark brown. Prelabrum yellow to tawny-yellow; palpus tawny-yellow (most males) to dark brown (most females). Thorax predominantly black to dark brown, with extensive greyish pruinescence; pleura with variable tawnyyellow markings; mesopleuron with small bare, shining anteroventral zone not reaching to fore-coxal foramen. Legs tawny-yellow; femora variably, often extensively brown to blackish distally; tibiae, particularly fore tibia, sometimes suffused with brown; tarsi browned distally. Wing hyaline, with tawny-brown veins. Halter yellow to creamy. Abdomen largely black; in male, epandrium usually partly yellow; in female, tergite 5 largely glossy, broadly greypruinescent on anterior margin, narrowly so on posterior margin; sternite 5 entirely dull, pruinescent; tergites 6 and 7 greyish-pruinescent.

Head slightly higher than long; eye c. as high as long; postfrons anteriorly projecting and forming acute angle with face in profile, more distinctly so in male than in female; setulae on anterior half of postfrons numerous but small, proclinate except for those on orbital margin; height of cheek 0.47–0.67 of height of eye; ocellar bristle slightly longer than posterior fronto-orbital; anterior fronto-orbital bristle c. half as long as posterior one or less, inclined outwards and slightly reclinate. Antenna porrect; segment 2 with very oblique articular surface; segment 3 longer and more nearly parallel-sided in male than in female; arista slightly longer than greatest diameter of eye; segment 6 with many hairs, mostly shorter than greatest diameter of segment 5. Prelabrum rather large and prominent in female, less so in male; palpus of moderate size.

Thorax somewhat elongate; mesoscutum c. as wide as long or slightly less; intradorsocentral setulae mostly in a pair of paramedian rows, of which no or very few setulae are placed as far back as posterior dorsocentral; very few setulae placed between paramedian row and dorsocentral line; mesopleuron without setulae; the following thoracic bristles all well developed: humeral, 1+1 notopleurals, presutural, supra-alar, postalar, posterior intra-alar, three dorsocentrals, of which first close behind transverse suture, about as long as second, one sternopleural; prescutellar acrostichal bristle absent. Fore leg without stridulatory modification; fore femur with a posterodorsal and a posteroventral series of long bristles; mid femur almost straight in female, longer, slender and distinctly curved in male, with a series of stout anterior bristles and, in male only, a series of numerous long, fine posteroventral setulae; hind femur stouter than mid-femur, particularly so in male, with one anterodorsal bristle at c. distal quarter of length, and, in male only, few scattered, non-seriate ventral bristles and long setulae; mid tibia with two or three long anterior bristles basad of level of preapical dorsal pair and one anterior and one posterior subapical spur, also, in female only, one ventral bristle near mid-length and one large ventral subapical spur, in male with very numerous long ventral mollisetae on almost whole length of tibia, many of them half as long as tibia or longer, only slightly less developed in diminutive specimens; hind tibia nearly straight, with slight curvature at extreme base, with preapical dorsal bristle large in female, smaller in male, with subapical anteroventral spur poorly differentiated or absent; mid basitarsus with some ventral mollisetae in male; hind basitarsus relatively short. Wing resembling that of B. stewarti ; vein 2 more distinctly curved and divergent from vein 3 near apex; apical section of vein 4 1.2–1.9× as long as penultimate section.

Abdomen. Sternite 1 reduced, represented by pair of separate lateral plates; tergites 2 to 5 with some enlarged lateral and posterior setulae; in male, tergite 5 shorter than tergite 4; sternite 4 with moderate sized setulae only; sternite 5 much shorter than wide, transversely narrowed but not divided medially; in female tergite 5 slightly longer than tergite 4 and almost as wide; sternite 5 only slightly longer than sternite 4. Male postabdomen: tergite 6 vestigial, scarcely sclerotized; sternite 6 strongly sclerotized on left side, merged with sternites 7 and 8 in compound protandrial sclerite, which is moderately elongate, posteriorly narrowed, and has broad ventral bridge; spiracles 6 both in intersegmental membrane; both spiracles 7 within anterior part of protandrial sclerite; epandrium ovoid-triangular, with numerous moderately long setulae and very extensive anteroventral bridge occupying nearly half length of epandrium; surstylus rather broad, almost parallel-sided, with few setulae of various sizes and group of large mollisetae on anterior side of basal half, without spinules; prehypandrial membrane restricted to anterior wall of lining of narrow cuplike cavity containing basiphallus, its surface with numerous short, comb-like groups of short microtrichia; gonite more elongate than in B. lindsayae , subcylindrical, with many large mollisetae on distal part and few minute setulae on medial surface; aedeagus approximately symmetrical; basiphallus short, sclerotized posteriorly; distiphallus stout, very broad subapically, but with narrowed, usually anteriorly reflexed apex, with extensively scabrous or scaly surface, and pair of anterobasal sclerotized ridges; cercus very broad and rather short, neither much compressed nor with anterobasal prominence, with setulae and many densely placed large mollisetae forming a conspicuous widely fluffed brush.

Dimensions. Total length,? 2.0– 3.3 mm,! 2.2–3.5 mm; length of thorax,? 0.99–1.5 mm,! 0.99–1.5 mm; length of wing,? 3.2–4.4 mm,! 3.1–4.4 mm.

Distribution. New South Wales: cooler districts from Blue Mountains southwards. Australian Capital Territory: Brindabella Range and vicinity. Victoria: Yarra Valley district—single record.

Notes

Borboroides tonnoiri belongs among those species of the stewarti group with largely black thoracic dorsum (when unfaded) and the mesopleuron almost entirely pruinescent, which species include also B. danielsi and B. lindsayae . From B. danielsi it is distinguished by the largely yellowish lower region of the occiput, in the male by the great development of ventral mollisetae on the mid tibia ( Fig. 52) and the presence of mollisetae instead of thick spinules on the surstylus, and in the female by the presence of only one ventral bristle on the mid tibia (in addition to the subapical ventral spur) instead of a longitudinal series of such bristles. Borboroides tonnoiri is distinguished from B. lindsayae by the shorter anterior fronto-orbital bristle and by other characters given under that species.

Borboroides tonnoiri has often been collected around wombat dung baits.

The specific epithet refers to André Léon Tonnoir, dipterist, who collected this species in 1930 and 1931 not far from where, on a later visit (1940), he died alone in the bush.