Hydrotaea spinigera (Stein)

Couri, Marcia S., Pont, Adrian C. & Daugeron, Christophe, 2010, The Muscidae (Diptera) of Vanuatu, Zootaxa 2556 (1), pp. 1-39 : 15

11. Hydrotaea spinigera (Stein)

Ophyra spinigera Stein, 1910: 555 . Holotype male, Singapore, destroyed, formerly in HMNH ( Pont 1973a: 238). Ophyra nigra ; Sabrosky, 1949: 428; Snyder, 1965: 275; Emden, 1965: 303.

Hydrotaea spinigera ; Pont, 1989: 677.

Diagnosis. Body colour black metallic; posterior margin of eye concave below; frontal triangle broad in female, the crossed setae on frontal vitta closer to eye margin than to each other; anterior katepisternal seta fine or absent; wing with at least the discal cell partially without microtrichia; mid femur in male with 2–3 short stout erect blunt spines at base of ventral surface; hind femur with 1–2 ventral spines near base; male aedeagus with praegonite with 2 setae. Male terminalia as in Figs 124, 128 and 132 and female ovipositor as in Figs 138 and 139, all in Pont (1973a).

Material examined. BMNH: Vanuatu: Tanna: ix.1925, 2 ♀, P.A. Buxton & G.H.E. Hopkins .

BPBM: Vanuatu: Éfaté: Port Vila , 0–150 m, i–ii.1977, 1 ♀, N.L.H.Krauss .

Comments. This species was known as Hydrotaea (or Ophyra ) nigra Wiedemann until Pont (1973a) examined the types of the Wiedemann names and established the correct identity of the name nigra . The species was recorded from Vanuatu (as Ophyra nigra ) by Sabrosky (1949). It was redescribed by Pont (1973a, also as Ophyra spinigera ).

Distribution. Australia (NSW, NT, Qld), Belau, Fiji, Guam, Indonesia (Maluku), Micronesia, New Caledonia ( New Caledonia), PNG (Bismarck Arch, PNG), Solomon Is, Vanuatu, Western Samoa; East Asia, Oriental Region.