Dasyhelea corinneae Gosseries, 1991

Grogan, William L., Díaz, Florentina, Spinelli, Gustavo R. & Ronderos, Maria M., 2019, The Biting Midges of the Caribbean island Curaçao (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) I. Species in the genus Dasyhelea Kieffer, Zootaxa 4700 (3), pp. 301-325 : 307-308

Dasyhelea corinneae Gosseries

Ceratopogon scutellata Meigen, 1830: 262 (Europe; preoccupied by Say, 1829).

Dasyhelea scutellata: Kieffer 1919: 50 (combination); Wirth 1965: 127 (in Nearctic catalog; distribution); Waugh & Wirth 1976: 236 (in revision of eastern USA Dasyhelea ; distribution); Wilkening et al. 1985: 519 (Florida county records).

Dasyhelea corinneae Gosseries, 1991: 42 (new replacement name for C. scutellata Meigen ); Borkent & Grogan 2009: 11 (in Nearctic catalog; distribution); Grogan et al. 2010: 22 (records from Santa Rosa and Walton counties, Florida); Borkent, 2016: 64 (in online World catalog).

Diagnosis. The only Neotropical species of the leptobranchia group with the following combination of characters. Males sternite 9 with elongate mid portion that extends beyond the apex of aedeagus and apical section expanded laterally; paramere with relatively short, distal portion, base broadly fused to right gonocoxal apodeme, distal section curved, apex usually not recurved ventrally; tergite 9 with moderately long, parallel apicolateral processes. Females with spermatheca ovoid to subspherical with a short slender straight or curved neck; subgenital plate reduced to a narrow transverse bridge with lateral arms; and abdominal sternite 8 with mid lateral row of 4–8 long, stout setae.

Discussion. This common Holarctic species inhabits the eastern United States and Canada from Kansas, New York and New Brunswick south to Louisiana and Florida ( Borkent & Grogan 2009). For over 70 years, it was known in North America as Dasyhelea scutellata (Meigen) . Gosseries (1991) noted that Ceratopogon scutellata Meigen (1830) was preoccupied by Say (1829), and therefore; he proposed the new replacement name Dasyhelea corinneae , for this wide-ranging, very common species. We provide the first Neotropical records of D. corinneae in the Caribbean region from Curaçao.

Dominiak (2012) assigned D. corinneae to the subgenus Pseudoculicoides , but, we are doubtful it belongs in that subgenus because females lack a circular or ovoidal subgenital plate with a central lumen and male gonocoxal apodemes are narrower than in most males in that subgenus.

Material examined. CURAÇAO, Playa Kanoa Rd. , 12°09ʹ33.02ʹʹ N, 68°52ʹ50.36ʹʹ W, 6-XII-2015, R. Turn- bow, BL trap, 3 females. New Curaçao record .