Genus Psychoda Latreille

Psychoda Latreille, 1796: 152. Type species: Tipula phalaenoides Linnaeus, 1758 by subsequent designation

Diagnosis. Species with short vertex; eye bridge with 4, or rarely 3 or 5 facet rows; labellum flattened with 3, 4, 5, or occasionally 6 “teeth” at apex; antenna with 12–14 flagellomeres, those beyond 11th always reduced and showing different types of fusion; flagellomeres flask shaped; last 3 flagellomeres usually without necks; ascoids usually Yshaped; upper part of anepimeron (= pteropleurite of Ježek 1983, 1984) entirely delimited by suture; additional anterior sclerite of anepimeron missing; wing pointed, with R5 ending at tip; radial fork distal to medial; aedeagus asymmetrical, simple paramere usually present; cercus with 1 tenaculum at tip; genital digit present in female.

Comments. The diagnosis presented above delimits a particular group of species of Psychodinae. The name given to this group varies according to the author, but refers to the same group of species. Quate (1959a, 1996, 1999) believes that this group of species could be considered as representing the genus Psychoda. Vaillant (1990) considered this group a tribe, Psychodini, and included only two genera in it: Copropsychoda and Psychoda. Finally, Ježek (1984) and Ježek & Harten (1996, 2005) also considered this group a tribe, but included 12 genera in it: Psychoda, Copropsychoda, Falsologima, Psychodula, Psychomora, Psychana, Logima, Tinearia, Chodopsycha, Ypsydocha, Psychodocha, and Psycha. The delimitation of the tribe Psychodini is controversial within the systematics of Psychodidae (Quate 1959a, Ježek 1984, Vaillant 1990, Duckhouse 1985).

The classificatory proposals of Quate (1959a) and Vaillant (1990) do not comprise the morphological diversity observed in Psychoda s. l. (= Psychodini). The proposal of Ježek (1984) and Ježek & Harten (1996, 2005) was an advance in the taxonomy of this taxon, as it became possible to identify and name morphological groups of Psychoda s. l. Future studies with other morphological characters in addition to the antenna should be undertaken to corroborate the 12 taxa (genera) proposed by Ježek (1984) and by Ježek & Harten (1996, 2005).

Three problems can be detected in applying the classificatory proposal of Ježek (1984) and Ježek & Harten (1996, 2005): a) some species originally described for Psychoda cannot be assigned to any of the 12 genera proposed because they may have lost their apical flagellomeres, making it difficult to determine the genera of these described species; b) some Neotropical species of Psychoda s. l. do not correspond to any of the 12 proposed genera and their description will increase the number of monospecific genera (Ibáñez­ Bernal 1993); c) some museum specimens loose the apical flagellomeres of the antenna, making their generic identification difficult using the classificatory system proposed by Ježek, and creating the same problem described in point “a” above. A fourth problem is related to the lack of nomenclatural stability; in some cases, a single species can be cited in the literature under two different names: Tinearia alternata (Say) (e.g., Wagner & Joost 1994) and Psychoda alternata Say (e.g., Quate 1996).

To solve these four problems, an alternative classification is presented for the species of Psychoda s. l., namely that the following 12 genera considered by Ježek (1984) and Ježek & Harten (1996, 2005) be considered as subgenera of the genus Psychoda: subgenus Psychoda Latreille; subgenus Copropsychoda Vaillant; subgenus Falsologima Ježek & Harten; subgenus Psychodula Ježek; subgenus Psychomora Ježek; subgenus Psychana Ježek & Harten; subgenus Logima Eaton, subgenus Tinearia Schellenberg, 1803; subgenus Chodopsycha Ježek; subgenus Ypsydocha Ježek; subgenus Psychodocha Ježek; subgenus Psycha Ježek.

Monophyly of Psychoda. Two putative apomorphies previously were proposed for the monophyly of Psychoda (as proposed in this paper): additional anterior sclerite of the anepimeron (= pteropleurite of Ježek 1983) not developed on the thorax of the adult (Ježek 1983), and larval antenna with two mushroom­shaped elements flanking sensory rod or secondarily reduced from this condition (Duckhouse 1985). Another two apomorphies are proposed for this taxon in the present paper: a) asymmetrical aedeagus with a simple paramere; a similar pattern of the aedeagus is observed in Threticus Eaton, another genus of Psychodinae, and b) the presence of a genital digit in the subgenital plate of the female, a character observed only in the species of Psychoda (Quate 1959a); in some species, this structure has been secondarily lost.