An overview of the Chloropidae (Diptera) of Saudi Arabia
Author
Dawah, Hassan A.
Author
Abdullah, Mohammed A.
Author
Deeming, John C.
text
Zootaxa
2020
2020-06-15
4791
1
1
71
journal article
21678
10.11646/zootaxa.4791.1.1
f530d842-6e03-4335-941c-f14930921041
1175-5326
3895893
96163E4E-BE84-4CF0-BD34-7E8BF815114D
Kwarea ismayi
Deeming
sp. n.
♂
♀
(
Figs 25
,
26
, a, b,c, d)
Material examined.
Holotype
♂
,
SAUDI ARABIA
:
Um Al-Raq Island
,
20°00’N
41°27’E
,
25.xi.2015
,
H.A. Dawah
(
NMWC
)
.
Paratypes
,
14♂
,
43♀
, same data as holotype (
NMWC
,
NHM
, and
CERS
)
.
Colour.
All setulae, setae and claws black. Pollinosity heaviest on scutum, grey, elsewhere very weak. Head yellow with ocellar tubercle and occiput black, but postocular band and a large inverted triangle behind vertex, antenna and palpus yellow. Arista and haustellum of proboscis black, the postpedicel sometimes obscurely darkened. Thorax with scutum black on three anteriorly fused longitudinal bands, leaving a band from upper notopleuron to prescutellar declivity dirty yellow, the pleura with most of katepisternum black, with a bar on anepisternum adjacent to it black and dark spots on propleuron, anepimeron and meron, notopleuron abutting anepisternum narrowly black. Legs brown with knees, apices of tibiae and all tarsi somewhat paler. Wing hyaline with dark brown veins. Haltere yellow. Abdomen with tergites dark brown.
Head
(
Fig 26a
). Eye sparsely short haired, frontal triangle more shiny than the adjacent frons, extending to mid length of frons; numerous proclinate interfrontal setulae present; proboscis geniculate, the haustellum ovoid in shape; clypeus projecting roundedly in profile.
Thorax
. One postpronotal, two equal notopleural setae, the single (prescutellar) dorsocentral seta a little short- er than the postalar; the apical pair of scutellar marginal setae widely spaced, the subapical pair only half their length.
Legs
Mid tibial spur large; male mid femoral organ (
Fig 26b
) consisting of a double row of studs, the more anterior of five and the more posterior of six situated basad of mid length and at an angle of c. 35° to the median line, the surface posterior to these rows devoid of setulae. Hind tibia lacking a visible sensory organ.
FIGURE 25
.
Kwarea ismayi
sp.n.
Deeming. Female.
Wing
(
Fig 26c
) with an even distribution of microchaetae, except on cell basad of humeral crossvein, which is largely devoid of them.
Abdomen
Sternites weakly developed. Male genitalia (
Fig 26d
).
Length
. 1.0 mm, of wing 1.0mm, of female sometimes slightly larger.
Remarks
. Um Al-Raq Island is situated in the Farasan Island group in the Red Sea. Being inhabited only by a Saudi Arabian Army unit responsible for security, it is almost totally undisturbed, and no agricultural activity occurs there. The soldiers being persistently heavily bitten by a
Leptoconops
sp. (
Ceratopogonidae
), one of us (HAD) visited the island to look into control measures for the pest. In sweeping, sticky and Malaise trapping several dipterous species not previously found on the largest of the Farasan Islands were found to be abundant. Amongst these was a new species of
Kwarea
Sabrosky, 1954
, which genus was previously known only from the generotype species
K. pallidihirta
Sabrosky, 1954
from
Tanzania
. Of this species only the
holotype
and
paratype
(both of which are males) are recorded.
Sabrosky (1954: 45)
likens
Kwarea
to
Psilacrum
Becker
, both having proclinate ocellar setae, but it differs from that genus in the development of the orbital setae, which are erect, strongly developed and three in number, rather than weak, and in having the postocellar (as postvertical) setae parallel to one another, rather than cruciate. He provides a modification to his (1951) key to the genera of
Oscinellinae
of the Ethiopian region (pp.743–747) to accommodate
Kwarea
. Since the number of erect strong orbital bristles differs in the two species between three and four, the generic diagnosis must be modified to take this into account. No mention of either
Kwarea
or
Psilacrum
appears in
Andersson’s (1977)
treatment of Old World genera of
Chloropidae
.
Etymology.
Dr. John Ismay has prepared figures of the whole insect, frons and genitalia of one of the two specimens of
K. pallidihirta
and has very kindly given us copies of these, which greatly enhance the rather brief original description, and serve to differentiate the two species. In gratitude for this the new species is dedicated to him.
This species differs from
K. pallidihirta
in the following respects: