Asynapta gossypii ( Coquillett, 1905 )

Jaschhof, Mathias, 2014, A revision of the types of Neotropical Porricondylinae (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), Zootaxa 3779 (4), pp. 463-469 : 464-465

Asynapta gossypii ( Coquillett, 1905)

Coquillett 1905: 200, described as a Porricondyla .

Type material. Lectotype (designated here). Male, Barbados ( NMNH). Paralectotype. Female, mounted under the same coverslip as the male.

Remarks. Both specimens are barely macerated, or otherwise lightened, and are shriveled. In the male, the genitalia are still attached to the abdomen and displayed in lateral view.

Adult morphology. Coquillett (1905) described this species on the basis of, in his own words, several dry and shriveled specimens of both sexes. The two preserved specimens are practically useless for the purpose of species characterization. Characters of limited diagnostic merit are as follows. In the male, the eye bridge is dorsally 10 ommatidia long; the number of flagellomeres is 20; in the fourth flagellomere, the neck is as long as the node and has microtrichia on the basal half. The parameres in A. gossypii are similar to those in A. citrinae . The female has 24 flagellomeres.

Remarks on larva, biology and distribution. Coquillett’s (1905) description of A. gossypii refers also to larval characters. Barnes (1949) provides additional information on the morphology and feeding habits of the larva, which he calls the cotton red maggot, and on the kind of damage it causes to cotton plants. According to Barnes, A. gossypii was also recorded from Montserrat, another island of the Lesser Antilles, located 500 km to the northwest of Barbados.