Elliptera Schiner 1863

Genus Elliptera Schiner, 1863

Elliptera Schiner, 1863: 222.

Elliptera – Edwards 1938: 20, 49. — Lackschewitz & Pagast 1942: 56, 60. — Ishida 1956: 124, 145. — Savchenko & Krivolutskaya 1976: 111, 113. — Savchenko 1983: 105; 1985: 17; 1989: 280. — Podenas & Byun 2013: 177. — Kato & Tachi 2019: 1.

Type species

Elliptera omissa Schiner, 1863.

Description

Adults are brown, sometimes yellowish gray, medium-sized crane flies with body length 4.0–9.0 mm. Antennal flagellum beaded. Mesonotal prescutum without tuberculate pits and pseudosutural foveae. Wing unpatterned or at most with darkening along cord, vein Sc long and nearly reaching branching point of Rs; sc-r before base of Rs; radial sector long and straight, situated very close to R and nearly parallel to it; R 2 indistinct, slightly beyond fork of Rs; discal cell open due to the atrophy of basal part of M 3 ; m-cu close to the branching point of M; anal angle widely rounded. Male terminalia large with transverse ninth tergum, elongate gonocoxite bearing two terminal gonostyles, and straight and short aedeagus. Ovipositor elongate and sclerotized with strongly raised apex of cercus.

Larva depressed dorsoventrally. Head capsule heavily sclerotized, with complete hypostoma. Frons fused with internolateralia, which are considerably shorter than externolateralia. Abdominal segments II–VII with dorsal and ventral creeping welts. Spiracular field surrounded by four lobes.

Pupa with large, ear-shaped pronotal horns. Sheaths of legs reaching sixth abdominal segment. Abdomen with dorsal and ventral transverse rows of spines.

Savchenko (1989) placed the genus Elliptera into the tribe Antochini based only on adult characters. Phylogenetic relationships of the family Limoniidae, including Elliptera, based on larval and pupal characters were analyzed by Oosterbroek & Theowald (1991), using a nonquantitative analysis. The final tree placed Elliptera as the sister group to the unresolved Atypophthalmus - Discobola lineage based on the presence of larval creeping welts on abdominal segments 2–4 in these genera, with the genus Antocha Osten Sacken, 1860 placed as sister group to the rest of the Limoniinae based on a weak synapomorphic character of oblong-shaped, obliquely placed spiracles (spiracles lost in Antocha).

Key to the East Palaearctic larvae of the genus Elliptera

1. Darker sclerotization only along margins of the spiracular field of the lateral lobe (Fig. 14 H–I)............................................................................ Elliptera zipanguensis zipanguensis Alexander, 1924 (Japan, North and South Koreas, Russian Far East)

– Darker sclerotization covering almost the entire spiracular field of the lateral lobe (Figs 3 A–B, 8B, D).......................................................................................................................................... 2

2. Hypostoma with nine teeth (Fig. 2I)................................................................................................................................ Elliptera mongolica Podeniene, Podenas & Gelhaus sp. nov. (China, Mongolia)

– Hypostoma with eleven teeth (Fig. 7G)........................................... Elliptera jacoti Alexander, 1925 (China, North and South Koreas, West Siberia and Far East of Russia)