Eudexia mellea (Giglio-Tos, 1893) comb. nov.

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(Figure 1)

Hystrichodexia mellea Giglio-Tos, 1893: 2. References: Giglio-Tos (1894: 58, complete description of male); Guimarães (1971: 30, catalog); O’Hara et al. (2020: 53, checklist of World Tachinidae). Type locality: Mexico, Oaxaca.

Lectotype designation for Hystrichodexia mellea Giglio-Tos, 1893

Lectotype ♂, labeled as follows: [first label uncomprehensible]; ‘Oaxaca’; ‘ Hystrichodexia / mellea/ ♂ Giglio-Tos’; ‘ HOLOTYPE ♂ / of Hystrichodexia / mellea G.-T./ examined 1982/ D.M. Wood’; ‘Dexia 1. ♂ / Oaxaca (Sallé)’ [Specimen in good condition, but with mold, mainly at the head, antennae partially broken and barely visible].

Recognition. Large tachinid, with scutum brownish, scutellum tawny to yellowish and abdomen broad, yellowish, with triangular black spot at apical middle of syntergite 1+2 and tergite 3, with blackish spline-like setae throughout the abdomen.

Diagnosis. Vertex broad, about 0.35x of head width in dorsal view, at most 0.15 in other species. Legs yellowish. Abdomen tawny-yellowish, but with syntergite 1+2 and tergite 3 with a triangular black spot at apical middle; without pruinosity; and tergite 5 with only posterior most region, about 1/9, brownish. This species is morphologically close to Eudexia colombiana (Townsend, 1929) —see fig. 2 of Santis (2021) —but can be readily differentiated from E. mellea comb. nov. by having the upper calypter yellowish (slightly brownish-black in E. colombiana), fore femur entirely yellowish (mostly yellowish, with portions of ventral regions blackish in E. colombiana), abdomen with syntergite 1+2 with conspicuous triangular black spot (absent in E. colombiana) and tergite 5 with only posterior most region, about 1/9, brownish (pale brownish in E. colombiana).