Luta, McAlpine, 2012

McAlpine, David K., 2012, Notes and Descriptions of Australian Helosciomyzidae or Comb-winged flies (Diptera: Schizophora), Records of the Australian Museum 64 (1), pp. 51-70 : 57

Genus Luta n.gen.

Type species: Helosciomyza luteipennis Steyskal.

Description. Moderately large, robust flies for family, agreeing with Helosciomyza s.str. in most characters.

Head slightly longer than high; height of cheek generally slightly less than one quarter of height of eye; cheek anteriorly usually with only the one peristomial series of setulae. Antennal segment 2 black (unfaded specimens); segment 3 largely black, rounded-oval; segment 5 subcylindrical, c. twice as long as its diameter.

Thorax. Dorsocentral bristles two pairs; scutellum convex dorsally, with two pairs of bristles; upper part of sternopleuron with relatively few hairs (or long setulae) on central section, bare anteriorly and posteriorly. Mid femur with non-seriate anterior bristles of various sizes; hind femur with two or more anterior to anterodorsal bristles; fore tarsus stouter in male than in female, with segment 4 not as short as in Helosciomyza fuscinevris group; fore tarsal claws notably longer in male than in female; hind basitarsus of male without scopula, with an anteroventral series of short stout spinules extending for most of its length, these spinules less developed in female. Wing: costa with anterior spaced spines; dorsal series of spines absent. Halter with yellow pedicel and brown capitellum.

Male postabdomen. Anterior epandrial process and basal surstylar process present; epiphallus absent (see Steyskal & Knutson, 1979: figs 19–21).

Notes

The genus includes only Luta luteipennis .

Barnes (1981) included L. luteipennis in the genus Neosciomyza , but it appears that the points of resemblance are mainly plesiomorphies, or, in the case of the convex scutellum, also shared with a relatively isolated species in the genus Helosciomyza , H. anaxantha Steyskal.

Luta is further distinguished from Neosciomyza by the following characters: the anterolateral margin of the epandrium is flexed inwards on each side to form a well defined crescentic plate lying in a transverse plane, the surstylus is narrowed basally and is without an internal ridge defining the basal plate, the basal surstylar process is short and stout, and the anterior epandrial process has a thick blunt apex with a brush of dense, curved pubescence.

Probably Luta is most closely related to Helosciomyza as delimited here and by Barnes (1981), but it lacks the apomorphic conditions of the male postabdomen, which help to define the latter genus.

The generic name is derived from the name of the type species and is grammatically feminine.