Amiota rufescens (Oldenberg, 1914)

Jones, Lance E. & Grimaldi, David A., 2022, Revision Of The Nearctic Species Of The Genus Amiota Loew (Diptera: Drosophilidae), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2022 (458), pp. 1-181 : 80

THE RUFESCENS SPECIES GROUP

DIAGNOSIS: Large flies; light colored, scutum dark yellow to ochre, with typical white markings; frons dull, dark yellowish to ochre/light brown; aristal branches medium to long. Male genitalia: Outer paraphysis slender, linear, simple (no spines or a pair of very small ones), with sensilla; prensisetae pointed; subepandrial sclerite strongly recurved, U-shaped.

NEARCTIC SPECIES: Amiota leucostoma Loew , A. mcalpinei , sp. nov., and A. tessae , sp. nov.

COMMENTS: This group was established by Chen and Toda (2001), for three Old World species: A. magniflava Chen and Toda , A. rufescens (Oldenberg) , and A. stylopyga Wakahama and Okada. Amiota leucostoma Loew was added later ( Chen et al., 2004). The original diagnosis was based on one of the characters we also observed, the pointed prensisetae, to which we add several additional male genitalic characters. Two Nearctic species are being added here, A. mcalpinei and A. tessae . Since species groups are informal categories there is no need to rename the group for the first species described ( A. leucostoma Loew ); taxonomic priority is not required, though generally followed.