Atherigona Rondani

Couri, Marcia S., Pont, Adrian C. & Daugeron, Christophe, 2010, The Muscidae (Diptera) of Vanuatu, Zootaxa 2556 (1), pp. 1-39 : 7-8

Genus Atherigona Rondani

Atherigona Rondani, 1856: 97 . Type-species: Anthomyia varia Meigen, 1826 , orig. des.

Diagnosis. Small flies, body colour grey or yellowish-grey; head angular, with long face and long antennal postpedicel; arista bare; one pair of reclinate orbital setae; palpus differentiated between the two sexes: in subgenus Acritochaeta Grimshaw , male palpus elongate and flattened, female palpus large and band-shaped; and in subgenus Atherigona Rondani , male palpus short, club-like, and female palpus long and narrow; dorsocentral setae reduced; katepisternals 1:2; setae on scutum and legs very short; hind tibia without calcar; wing veins bare; abdomen in males of subgenus Atherigona with a trifoliate process and a hypopygial prominence, both absent in subgenus Acritochaeta ; adult female with (subgenus Atherigona ) or without (subgenus Acritochaeta ) a pair of small anterior plates on tergite 8 of ovipositor.

Comments. The genus is very well represented in the Australasian and Oceanian Regions with 54 species listed in the last catalogue ( Pont 1989). Five of them have been recorded from Vanuatu: A. orientalis Schiner , A. poecilopoda Bezzi (see paragraph below), A. oryzae Malloch , A. simplex (Thomson) and A. tibiseta Malloch. Although this is one of the most speciose muscid genera occurring on Vanuatu, relatively few specimens have been collected except for the hemisynanthropic A. orientalis . The Atherigona fauna of Vanuatu shares some elements with that of New Caledonia, but A. bidens Hennig and A. poecilopoda Bezzi are found in New Caledonia but not in Vanuatu whilst A. punctata Karl is found in Vanuatu but not in New Caledonia ( Couri et al. 2010).

So far as A. poecilopoda is concerned, the Pacific records given by Pont (1989) are based either on misidentifications or on specimens misplaced in the BMNH collection, except for the records from Fiji and New Caledonia. No specimens of this species have been seen from Vanuatu.