Cyphomyia baoruco Woodley

Woodley, Norman E., 2014, A new species of Cyphomyia Wiedemann from the Dominican Republic with a key to Caribbean species of the genus (Diptera, Stratiomyidae, Clitellariinae), ZooKeys 453, pp. 111-119 : 112-116

Taxon classification Animalia Diptera Stratiomyidae

Cyphomyia baoruco Woodley sp. n. Figs 1-6

Diagnosis.

Cyphomyia baoruco can be separated from all other Caribbean species of Cyphomyia by its bluish black body, the abdomen without silvery pilose spots dorsally, and its darkly infuscated wings. The male (female unknown) can be separated from New World mainland species by its eyes that have very long pilosity that appears slightly crinkly. Mainland species with pilose eyes generally have hairs that are shorter and denser, and none have crinkly pilosity.

Description.

Male. (Figs 1-2). Head: Black, frontal triangle vaguely more brownish; eyes large, holoptic on upper frons, ommatidia nearly uniform in size without abrupt transition, with moderately dense, black pilosity that is about the length of scape and slightly crinkly (Figs 3-4); face very slightly convex, evenly receding to oral margin; postocular orbit, only narrowly visible in lower half in profile; head largely devoid of tomentum, present only along lower part of postocular orbit and extremely narrow strip along eye margin on gena, face, and frons, where it is grayish; head with very long pilosity, about length of scape+pedicel, of moderate density, black on ocellar triangle, face, and gena, with some whitish hairs intermixed on lower part of face and entirely whitish on lower gena and postgena; antenna (Fig. 4) black, 1.71 times length of head, gradually tapering from base to apex, ratio of segments 19:9:91[16:10:7:6:8:10:12:22], last flagellomere acuminate, scape and pedicel very densely set with bushy black pilosity, some hairs almost as long as scape+pedicel, flagellum velvety tomentose, a few short hairs present on apical flagellomere; palpus black, small, two-segmented (mostly obscured by labellum); proboscis dark yellowish, brownish laterally on labellum.

Thorax: Black, vaguely browner under wing base, postpronotal lobe, lateral part of postalar callus, and scutellar spines brownish yellow; scutellum with spines a little longer than scutellum, almost in same plane as scutellum, curving very slightly upward; prosternum and medial part of laterotergite with yellowish white tomentum, small areas on meron with sparser, inconspicuous tomentum; pilosity of thorax primarily silvery white, partly semi-appressed on scutum where it forms a narrow medial vitta that decreases in width posteriorly so that it is only a few hairs wide near scutellum, and sublateral patches forming wider, more poorly developed vittae anterior to transverse suture; other areas of scutum with semi-appressed dark hairs, and both scutum and scutellum including spines with very long, erect, slightly wavy black hairs (Fig. 3); central part of anepisternum, most of meron, and medial part of subscutellum bare and shiny; legs dark brown to brownish black, front and middle tarsi with basal two tarsomeres paler, dark yellowish; legs mostly pilose, a mixture of pale and dark hairs, mostly short and semi-appressed, longer erect hairs present on posterior and ventral surfaces of front and middle femora, most of hind femur, and posterior surfaces of front and middle tibiae; wing with dark brown infuscation over entire surface that gradually gets paler posteriorly, entirely set with microtrichia except for strip along anterior portion of cell cup and most of alula; halter with stem yellowish, knob brown.

Abdomen: Dark brownish with slight bronzy reflections, subshiny on tergites 1 and 2 and basal part of tergite 3, remainder black with distinct metallic blue reflections, shiny; sternite 1 brown, uniformly set with brownish tomentum, 2-5 black with metallic blue reflections, shiny, segments beyond 5 brownish; tergites with dark, semi-appressed pilosity, with longer erect hairs laterally, some of which are whitish on basal two tergites, becoming progressively shorter posteriorly; first two sternites with erect, whitish hairs medially, otherwise sternites with short, semi-appressed pilosity.

Male terminalia: With gonocoxites (Fig. 6) slightly longer than wide with lateral triangular processes covering gonostylar articulation, gonocoxal apodemes extending anteriorly beyond anterior margin of genital capsule; hypandrium completely fused, posterior portion of ventral bridge grooved medially, sharply bilobed; gonostylus with weakly developed rounded process posterolaterally, dorsal edge sharp, slightly produced; phallic complex complicatedly fused with gonocoxites, apparently trifid, medial lobe sharply pointed, apparent lateral lobes longer than medial lobe, flattened and with medial curvature posteriorly; epandrium (Fig. 5) simple, more or less quadrate, a little longer than wide, posterior margin evenly rounded; cercus short, slightly widened and rounded posteriorly.

Measurements: Length exclusive of antennae, 9.1 mm; antennal length, 2.5 mm; wing length, 9.5 mm.

Female. Unknown.

Distribution.

Known only from the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola.

Type material.

Holotype male (USNM), DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Pedernales Province, Parque Nacional Sierra de Baoruco, Las Abejas, 18°09.011'N, 71°37.342'W, 1150 meters, 17 July 2006, N.E. Woodley. A Smithsonian Institution barcode label is attached to the specimen: USNMENT 01028720. The holotype is in excellent condition.

Etymology.

The species epithet, baoruco, is a noun in apposition from the name of the mountain range, Sierra de Baoruco, where the holotype specimen was collected.

Remarks.

As noted in the introduction, this species differs from all other Caribbean species of Cyphomyia in general appearance. It looks more like many Central and South American species that have a dark bluish black body and dark brown wings. The females of these mainland species often have a bright yellow head, and it will be interesting to see if the female of Cyphomyia baoruco also has this feature when it is discovered.

The type locality of Cyphomyia baoruco , Las Abejas, is at the southwestern end of the Sierra de Baoruco range, which is more or less continuous with the Massif de la Selle in eastern Haiti. The habitat at this site is classified as premontane wet forest ( Fisher-Meerow and Judd 1989), an epiphyte-rich diverse hardwood forest which occurs in a thin strip along the southern part of the mountain range mostly between 1100-1200 meters. Las Abejas has been a fairly well-known collecting site since at least the early 1980s, and has produced some remarkable new species (e.g., Woodley 1993, Konstantinov and Chamorro-Lacayo 2006). This habitat in this region is critically endangered ( León et al. 2013). Even though this habitat type is now largely within Parque Nacional Sierra de Baoruco, it has suffered extensive deforestation primarily for subsistence farming, and this is probably more intense at its western end near Haiti. I first visited Las Abejas in 1984 and last in 2006 and the extent of deforestation at the site during that time span was significant.

I have composed a key to the described species of Cyphomyia found on Caribbean islands that is provided below. It should be noted, however, that due to the paucity of collecting on many islands in the region, it is likely that additional undescribed species will be found. After the key a few brief notes on the included species are given.