Dicerura scirpicola Kieffer, 1898

Jaschhof, Mathias & Spungis, Voldemars, 2018, Towards reliable identification of male Dicerura: descriptions of three new and seven poorly known species in the Palearctic region (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae, Porricondylinae), Zootaxa 4422 (1), pp. 85-103 : 100

Dicerura scirpicola Kieffer, 1898

Dicerura scirpicola , the generic type, was described from France based on larvae and adults of both sexes ( Kieffer 1898, 1899). According to Kieffer’s (1899) paper, which contains an illustration of the male genitalia (fig. 2), the following male characters could help to positively identify this species: the color of the body is generally yellow without dark markings on thorax and abdomen; the ninth tergite is bilobed posteriorly; the gonostylus is almost three times longer than wide, bent slightly inwards, and provided with a small, slightly protruding lobe mediobasally; and the apical fork of the ejaculatory apodeme is strongly diverging. The latter character in particular might be specific to D. scirpicola . We suppose that this species is a member of the iridis group. Kieffer (1898, 1899) described larvae of D. scirpicola as living under the leaf sheaths of wood club-rush Scirpus silvaticus L. Prompted by that information, one of us (VS) investigated Latvian stands of S. silvaticus for larvae of D. scirpicola , which did not produce the anticipated result but brought forth the discovery of D. unidentata , whose larvae were found to live in the same microhabitat ( Spungis 1987).