Agromyza mitarakensis Boucher 2025, n. sp.
Creators: name: Marc, Stéphanie Boucher
name: Pollet, Marc
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Agromyzidae
Agromyza
Agromyza mitarakensis

description: Agromyza mitarakensis Boucher, n. sp.
(Fig. 1)
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 42F0BECA-D5CF-4EEC-BA4E-6A6987512C15
TYPE MATERIAL. — Holotype. Guyane • ♂; Mitaraka, sampling site: MIT-E-savane roche 2; 02°13’59.8”N, 54°27’46.5”W; 471 m; open/ partially opened areas; 13-20.VIII.2015; MT (6 m); Pierre-Henri Dalens leg.; sample code: MITARAKA/230, sorted by M. Pollet; MNHN.
ETYMOLOGY. — The specific name refers to the type locality.
DIAGNOSIS. — This species differs from other Neotropical species of Agromyza by the strongly angulate gena, greyish calypter with brown fringe, dirty yellow halter, small epistoma, yellowish antennae, long acrostichal setulae, two well-developed postsutural dc, and the arista with short, but distinct pubescence.
DISTRIBUTION. — French Guiana.
HOST PLANTS. — Unknown.
DESCRIPTION
Male
Orbital plate not projecting in front of eye in profile; frons width including orbital plates 0.25 mm at midpoint; orbital plate 0.25 × width of frons at midpoint; two reclinate ors and two slightly weaker inclinate ori; orbital setulae sparse, short and reclinate, in one row; first flagellomere small with short white pubescence; arista long with distinct pubescence; gena angulate, deeper at rear (Fig. 1A), at midpoint about 0.1 × maximum eye height; clypeus with upper margin rounded (Fig. 1B); small epistoma present (Fig. 1B); only two well-developed postsutural dc located posterior to supra-alar, with possibly one much smaller postsutural anterior dc on one side only; prsc well-developed; acrostichal setulae long and numerous, in about 8-9 rows; mid tibia with two posterolateral setae; wing length approximately 1.95 mm (wing bent); last section of M 4 0.6 × length of penultimate section.
Colour
Frons and orbital plate pale brown, upper frons blackish at level of ocelli; scape and pedicel pale brown, first flagellomere yellowish; face and palpus brown; gena brown with yellowish spot at rear; clypeus brown, subshining; mesonotum and scutellum shiny brown; side of thorax (all pleura) brown; legs brown; calypter and fringe brown; halter yellow apically, with stalk and base of knob brownish; abdomen yellowish brown.
Male genitalia
Phallus (Fig. 1D, E) symmetrical, with distiphallus short and broad; hypandrium pointed at apex; ejaculatory apodeme with narrow blade (Fig. 1C).
REMARKS
This new species has a characteristic ejaculatory apodeme with a narrow blade as seen for A. simillima Spencer, 1963 from Brazil (Spencer 1963). The two species also share only two well-developed dc. The phallus of A. simillima has never been illustrated. Pictures of the phallus (on permanent mount) and habitus of the holotype specimen of A. simillima (Fig. 2), provided by the Natural History Museum, London (NHM), confirm that the two species are different. The distiphallus of A. simillima is much narrower and elongate (Fig. 2A). Furthermore, the arista of A. simillima is described as conspicuously plumose (Spencer 1963), which is not the case in A. mitarakensis Boucher, n. sp. The head of the holotype of A. simillima is glued to a cardboard point separated from the rest of the specimen, but the aristae are missing (Fig. 2C). The phallus of A. mitarakensis Boucher, n. sp. is similar to that of A. animata Spencer, 1973 from Costa Rica (Spencer 1973a), but the latter species has three well-developed dc and darker antennae. The ejaculatory apodeme of A. animata has not been described nor illustrated yet. Agromyza mitarakensis Boucher, n. sp. was listed as morphospecies Agromyza Mit- 1 in Boucher & Pollet (2021).
description: Published as part of Marc, Stéphanie Boucher & Pollet, Marc, 2025, New species and new records of leaf-miner flies (Diptera, Agromyzidae) from rainforest and inselberg at Mitaraka (French Guiana), pp. 13-42 in Zoosystema 47 (2) on page 15, DOI: 10.5252/zoosystema2025v47a2, http://zenodo.org/record/14670952