Scythropochroa macleayi ( Skuse, 1888 ) Skuse, 1888

Broadley, Adam, Kauschke, Ellen & Mohrig, Werner, 2016, Revision of the types of male Sciaridae (Diptera) described from Australia by F. A. A. Skuse, Zootaxa 4193 (3), pp. 401-450 : 446-447

Scythropochroa macleayi ( Skuse, 1888) comb. n.

( Fig. 28 A‒C)

Sciara macleayi ( Skuse, 1888) [ Skuse (1888): 673 ‒674, Fig. 1 ].

Type locality. Australia, New South Wales, Lawson.

Lectotype (here designated): Male. Slide bears original label data verbatim ‘ Sciara macleayi / Ƌ (ink) TYPE./ F. A. A. Skuse’ (print), ‘Lawson/ M’. Mounted in Canada balsam Dec. 2015. ( ANIC; Slide No. 032-1).

Paralectotypes. Male. Original label data verbatim ‘ S. macleayi ’, ‘ Bowral (M)’. Mounted in Canada Balsam Sept. 2015. ( PWMP; Slide No. 032-3). 1 male and 2 females (not studied).

Preservation. Flagellomeres lost; thorax strongly damaged, legs partly destroyed, hypopygium in good condition.

Remarks. Original description states “ Hab.—Lawson and Glenbrook, Blue Mountains, also Bowral (Masters); Manly, near Sydney (Skuse).”

Additional description. Male. Head. Brown. Eye bridge 4 facets wide; flagellomeres missing; palpus 1- segmented. Thorax. Brown, scutum with rather long and dense dorsocentral and lateral hairs; scutellum covered densely with rather long bristles, marginal bristles not developed; mediotergite with an irregular row of short bristles in the proximal third as well as short bristles on the sclerite behind the first spiracle and on the katepisternum in the proximal angle; postpronotum bare. Wing brownish; R1 rather long, longer than R, joining C distally from the base of the M-fork; R5 throughout with dorsal and ventral macrotrichia; C = ½ w; y longer than x, both with macrotrichia; M-stem weakly visible, sometimes with 1‒3 macrotrichia; M-branches and CuA1 with a few macrotrichia distally. Haltere short, brown. Legs brown; apex of the fore tibia with a large patch of dark bristles; spurs of middle and hind tibia equal in size; claws without teeth. Abdomen. Brown, with rather long dense hairs. Hypopygium with broad open ventral base, without lobe or patch of bristles; gonocoxite rather short and strong, with rather long and moderately dense hairs on the inner ventral margin, ventral apex without long megaseta; gonostylus nearly as long as gonocoxite, apically broad and forehead shaped, with short dishevelled hairs, angular near the middle and with 3 short black spines, inner side above spines with longer bristles; tegmen pyramid-like and apically pointed, laterally shouldered, with fine hair-like teeth and with a short and broad ventral parameral apodeme; aedeagus rather short and thin, with a small furca. Body length: 5.0 mm.

Comments. This large species is characterized by a 1-segmented palpus, bristles on thoracic sclerites, brownish wings with long R1, macrotrichia on branches of M-fork, CuA1, y and x; large gonostylus with high forehead-like shaped apex and 3 short spines on a corner near the middle. It is a typical species of the genus Scythropochroa . It shows similarities to Scyth. parapectinea Mohrig from Papua New Guinea (Mohrig 2013) by the arrangement of the spines on the inner side of the gonostylus.

Distribution. Australia (New South Wales).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Portrait photograph of Frederick Skuse, Australian Museum, dated December 1890. Image courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales.

FIGURE 28. Scythropochroa macleayi (Skuse, 1888). A. Hypopygium; B. Gonostylus (paralectotype); C. Wing.