Protypusia inornata ( Engel, 1932 ) Gibbs, 2023

Gibbs, David, 2023, A world review of the bee fly tribe Usiini (Diptera, Bombyliidae) - Part 3: Parageron Paramonov s. lat., European Journal of Taxonomy 863 (1), pp. 1-162 : 85-90

Protypusia inornata ( Engel, 1932) gen. et comb. nov.

Fig. 49

Usia inornata Engel, 1932: 74 .

Etymology

From Latin ‘ inōrnātus ’ = ‘unadorned’.

Type material

Syntype (not examined)

EGYPT • ♀; “ Gebel Elba (Wadi Edeib), South-Eastern Desert, January 1930 ♀ leg Efflatoun Bey, ( Engel 1932)”; ESEC .

Up to two specimens in ESEC but it was not possible to borrow any or obtain high quality photos. However, good photos of a homeotype preserved in EFC (collected from type locality and in same time frame and compared with the syntypes by the late Efflatoun Bey) were made available to me by Dr Magdi S. El-Hawagry. Gebel Elba January 1933 det H.C. Efflatoun [♀].

Non-type material examined

Two female specimens in MNHS that fit the description of this taxon in Engel (1932) and Efflatoun (1945) are potentially this species.

SENEGAL • 1 ♀; “Ross Bethio, 2 March 1977, G. Couturier leg./butinant sur Momordica balsamina [nectaring on Momordica balsamina ]/ Oligodranes sp. ”; MNHN • 1 ♀; “M’Bour, St Orstom, 2 FebruaryDecember 1980, B. Sigwalt leg./ Piège de Malaise ”; MNHN .

Redescription

MEASUREMENTS. Body length. 4.2–5.4 mm.

Male (based on Efflatoun (1945) and plate in Smithsonian Archives)

HEAD. Frons glistening white with faintly yellow tinge, this colour extending down the gena, lacking erect hairs. Occiput and ocellar tubercle dark in ground colour densely covered with grey-white dust and outstanding yellowish-grey hairs, those on ocellar tubercle short, longer and denser on occiput. All ocelli in contact with eye margin (from plate). Eyes confluent for a little longer than half the length of the head (looks shorter than this in plate). Antennae black, scape and pedicel paler due to greyish dust more conspicuous than on postpedicel. Postpedicel somewhat swollen below basally, contracted in apical third, a little less than twice the length of scape and pedicel combined. Antennae sparsely haired above, short pale yellowish hairs on scape and pedicel. Palps very small and short, slightly clavate, yellowishbrown apically bearing one short, stiff, whitish hair. Proboscis relatively long, about twice as long as head (including antennae), black except for the creamy-buff basoventral membrane.

THORAX. Dark ground colour obscured by dense dust varying from pale brownish-grey to light greyishbrown. Mesonotum with well-defined blackish-brown paramedian vittae from anterior slope to rear quarter, acrostichal grey stripe about one and a half times as wide as darker paramedian vittae. Antehumeral vittae less well defined but similar in colour, divided at thoracic suture, anterior to suture rather oval, behind suture either similar but longer or a narrow stripe. Whole of mesonotum and scutellum covered with short, erect, not dense pale yellowish hair, whiter and longer on the front of the mesonotum, postpronotal lobe and notopleuron. Mesonotum very finely punctured with black pits at points of hair attachments. Scutellum uniformly rather densely brownish-grey to greyish-brown dust, finely punctured as mesonotum, the hairs rather longer and pale yellowish. Pleura dusted as mesonotum, anepisternum with fine longish white hairs all over.

WING. Membrane hyaline, the veins pale yellow-brown, sometimes with a short, backwards projecting appendix near the base of R 4. Crossvein r-m at or before basal third of the discal cell, sometimes duplicated m-m cross-vein not straight, undulating or absent (aberration). Anal lobe broad with conspicuously convex margin, clearly broader than anal cell.

HALTERE. Ivory yellow to light cream-buff, base of stem obscure blackish-brown.

LEGS. Coxae blackish, yellowish apically. Trochanters obscure brownish-yellow. Femora, tibia and tarsi, more or less dark yellowish-brown to blackish-brown with extreme tips of femora and narrow bases of tibia reddish-yellow. Front and mid-tibia also paler apically, sometimes tarsi of these legs paler. Coxae and front four femora furnished with moderately long glistening yellowish-white hairs, legs otherwise covered with very short, adpressed fairly dense hairs.

ABDOMEN. Not short, tergites dark brownish-olive with well demarcated pale yellow-buff apical margins about one third to one forth the depth of the segment. All tergites except the first blackish-grey and finely

punctured. Sternites similar with pale apical margins. Tergites and sternites covered with short, suberect, not dense pale yellowish hairs, longer and rather more dense laterally and towards base.

GENITALIA. Relatively large when compared to other holoptic species. Gonocoxites blackish-brown with yellowish hairs. Epandrium yellowish-red with very short, erect yellowish hair.

Female (based on Engel (1932), Efflatoun (1945) and photographs of EFC specimen)

Similar to male, general colour of dusting on the head and thorax varying from pure white to light greyish-brown, abdomen broader and pubescence shorter. Frons close to parallel, only slightly widening from vertex to front of frons, about one third head width at vertex. Frons with small dark spot centrally where dusting thinner so dark cuticle shows through. Gena moderately narrow, about the same as the more shining mouth margin. Lateral ocelli separated from corner of eye by about twice the diameter of that ocellus. In the EFC specimen, in addition to the dark brown paramedian and antehumeral vittae, there is a round spot of similar colour behind the transverse suture above the wing base. In all the three female specimens known venation typical with no duplicated or missing veins. Legs with pale areas a little more extensive, especially on the front and middle legs, front and middle tibia have apical quarter or third reddish-yellow. Abdomen broader than in male as typical for genus, tergites ash-grey dusted, the apical margins of the tergites broader, up to half the length of the tergite. Colour varying from deep buff to honey-yellow, that on tergite one can occupy whole segment. Ovipositor (apical sternite?) reddishyellow, obscurely brown at apex bearing microscopic pale yellow hairs.

Two female specimens from Senegal probably belong here.

Female cf. Pro. inornata Senegal

MEASUREMENTS. Body length: 3.5 mm. Wing length: 3.5 mm.

HEAD. Gena and mouth margin conspicuously narrower than in female Par. erythraea but wider then in Pro. punctipennis , about as wide as width of scape, broadening out into frons, dull yellow-grey, darker on ocellar tubercle and middle of front of frons, in ground colour. Rather densely coated with cinereous-yellow dusting, a shinier border to the oral opening below. Frons about as wide at vertex as length of postpedicel, broadening anteriorly only slightly. Very short, pale brown proclinate hairs on ocellar tubercle and rear of frons laterally, hardly longer than diameter of an ocellus. Eye facets all small and equal. Occiput dark in ground colour; densely coated with cinereous-yellow dust and covered with white hairs as long as length of scape and pedicel combined. Antennae black, postpedicel significantly longer than scape and pedicel together, rather oblong and parallel sided, a tiny upwardly directed point marking distal edge of the subapical sulcus. Short, pale erect hairs along dorsum of all three segments, longest ones just before subapical sulcus. Palps small, short and clavate, dark brown with long pale hairs apically. Proboscis moderately long, about equal to the mesonotum plus scutellum, black, tapering evenly, not swollen at base, naked, the basoventral membrane yellow-white.

THORAX. Mesonotum dark in ground colour, vaguely paler on post pronotal lobe; densely coated with grey dust (cinereous to yellow-grey). Disc of mesonotum with pattern of vittae very similar to Pro. punctipennis ; clear, dark grey-brown paramedian vittae from the very front of the mesonotum widening rearward to above wing bases, where they end a similarly coloured prescutellar vittae continues to the scutellum. Laterally clear antehumeral vittae, broken at thoracic suture, anterior one broader than posterior part. In the supra-alar area is a dusted spot very similar in colour to the mesonotal vittae placed behind the thoracic suture by about the diameter of the spot. In many species that also have this spot it is variable and missing in some individuals so is likely to be variable in this species. Hairs of mesonotum very short, white, sparse and biserial on acrostichal lines, more abundant, tri- to quadriserial on dorsocentral lines, longer on notopleuron where hairs longer than scape and pedicel combined. Scutellum as mesonotum, ground colour vaguely darker basally, pale yellow-white hairs similar in length to those on the notopleuron. Pleura concolourous with sides of mesonotum, grey dusted, pronotum and dorsum and posterior half of the anepisternum with white hairs like those on notopleuron.

WING. Membrane with a very faint paler brown tinge, the veins brownish-yellow. Crossvein r-m at basal quarter to third of the discal cell, level with or a little beyond m-cu. Anal lobe well developed with conspicuously convex margin, notably broader than anal cell.

HALTERE. Knob variable, yellow-white in one specimen, brown infuscated in the other, stem slightly infuscated, especially at base.

LEGS. Coxae concolourous with pleura. Femora and tibia dark brown with tips of femora and very narrow bases of tibia yellow, trochanters and bases of femora also more yellowish. Front tibia paler brown than mid tibia, all legs thinly silvery dusted. Legs covered with short white hairs, longest on the coxae and femora.

ABDOMEN. Tergites basally blackish-brown, shading rather abruptly into broad yellow apical margins, wider laterally. All tergites very thinly pale dusted, and with short pale hairs barely a quarter the length of basal tergites, becoming longer on apical tergites. Sternites very like tergite but more densely grey dusted, that part of sternite eight visible in pinned specimens all dark brown, grey dusted. The proximal part of the genital fork is strongly sclerotised, triangular and hooked, coming to a sharp point (this point is not readily seen in Fig. 49b being obscured by the sclerotised area around the spermathecal opercula).

Remarks

Engel (1932) described Pro. inornata from the female sex only, captured at Gebel Elba, South-East Desert, Egypt in January 1930 (Efflatoun Bey). Neither Engel (1932) nor Efflatoun (1945) said how many female specimens were used for the type description, but as only five specimens are known, two being male; and one female in EFC was collected in 1933 (Magdi El-Hawagry pers. com.), there cannot have been more than two. The five known specimens were all collected at the same location between late January and early March, but over a nine-year span from 1930 to 1938. Presumably, if a male had been available before 1932, Efflatoun would have sent one with the female to Engel, so these are unlikely to have been collected alongside the type. Efflatoun (1945) does not explain why he associated the males he described with Engel’s Pro. inornata , presumably just propinquity.

Without being able to dissect both sexes, it is impossible to be certain of the affinities of this species. However, on external morphology it is very close to Pro. negevi , and could well be synonymous. I have retained it as a separate species based on subtle characters such as having browner colour, better defined paramedian and antehumeral vittae, and the wider buffy-yellow apical margins of tergites in female. It is also very close to Pro. raydahensis (El-Hawagry & Al Dhafer 2016) from Saudi Arabia, again retained as separate based on subtle characters such as smaller size, more extensively yellow bases to fore and mid-tibia, and more thinly dusted, the last character resulting in a more shining mesonotum.

The specimens examined from Senegal that could be conspecific with Pro. inornata are exceedingly close to the EFC specimen of Pro. inornata . The only character that can be discerned from the Senegal specimens that differs from the EFC specimen is a dark prescutellar vittae reaching forward to the end of the paramedian vittae and of similar colour. Also, the Senegal specimens have a darker base to tergite one, whereas the EFC Pro. inornata appears to have a largely pale tergite one. Both of these characters can be variable in other Protypusia gen. nov., so are insufficient to conclude that these specimens are not Pro. inornata . The female genitalia point towards an affinity with Pro. negevi , but the mesonotal and abdominal pattern are strongly suggestive of Pro. inornata .

Distribution

Egypt and (? Senegal).

Figures

Fig. 49. Protypusia inornata (Engel, 1932) gen. et comb. nov. a. Habitus male, Smithsonian Institution Archives Image SIA2012-7885-wing venation aberrant. b–d. Protypusia cf. inornata, Senegal specimen b. Female genitalia ventral. c. Female genitalia lateral. d. Female sternite 8 ventral.