Atherigona subnigripes

Atherigona (s. str.) subnigripes (Karsch, 1888)

Fig. 3a

Described into the genus Cleigastra Macquart, 1835 and from Bondei in what is now Tanzania, this species is only known from the female holotype (Karsch 1888: 380). This type, previously recorded by me (Deeming 1971: 183) as being lost, appears in the material discovered in the Smithsonian Institution and has been returned to MNB. The specimen is mounted on a white steel 39 mm long ‘continental’ pin and is in good condition. It bears the following labels:

1) blue rectangular “Bondei, C.W. Schmidt, Jan. 86” machine-printed.

2) white rectangular “13848” machine-printed.

3) red rectangular “ Type ” machine-printed.

4) white rectangular “ Cleigastra subnigripes Karsch ” handwritten in an unknown hand.

5) grey rectangular “ Atherigona [illegible short word]” in Stein’s hand.

Redescription

MEASUREMENTS: Body length female 4.5 mm; wing 3.5 mm.

Female

HEAD. Black dorsally and on upper four fifths of occiput; yellow elsewhere, yellow parts whitish to yellow dusted, postorbital stripe pale grey dusted, occiput darker dusted, especially medially, where it is as dark as ocellar prominence; frontal plate undusted from level of posterior ocellus to base of the posterior of the two inferior orbital setae; frontal vitta black throughout; parafacialia at narrowest part as wide as two thirds of width of anterior ocellus; antenna dark brown, ferruginous on the basoventral angle of postpedicel; palpus yellow, slightly infuscate on basal one third of its length.

THORAX. Scutum and scutellum black and very lightly yellowish dusted, the former with indications of three darker longitudinal vittae and becoming yellowish in ground colour on lateral declivities; pleura yellow in ground colour and heavily golden yellow dusted; one long and one moderate propleural seta and a fine setula; one moderate prostigmatical and a fine setula; lower katepisternal seta situated closer to the more posterior of the two upper setae.

WING. Hyaline with yellowish veins; anterior crossvein situated at 0.38 of length of discal cell.

LEGS. Yellow with tarsi more or less infuscate, fore femur black on apical two fifths, fore tibia black but obscurely yellowish at extreme base and hind tibia brown.

ABDOMEN. Yellow, shining through weak yellowish dust; tergite 4 with a pair of round dark spots which are one quarter of the exposed length of the tergite and are separated from its apex by their own diameter; tergite 5 with a pair of long oval black spots occupying the apical half of its exposed length; tergite 8 (Fig. 7). The abdomen is contained in a van Doesburg vial of glycerine pinned under the specimen.

Male

Unknown.

Remarks

This species may well be conspecific with one known only from males. There are several African species whose females bear a superficial resemblance to this one, but none of those that I have been able to inspect has a similar structure to the eighth tergite.

Distribution

Tanzania.