Melanophora roralis Linnaeus 1758
Creators: name: Kato, Daichi
name: Tachi, Takuji
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Rhinophoridae
Melanophora
Melanophora roralis

description: Melanophora roralis (Linnaeus, 1758)
(Figs 15–20, 29, 33, 35)
Musca roralis Linnaeus, 1758: 597. Syntypes: specimen data not given (Linnean Society, London, UK; not examined). Type locality: not given (Europe).
Melanophora roralis: Arnaud (1978: 3); Crosskey (1977: 51); Cerretti & Pape (2009: 558).
Material examined. JAPAN (Aomori): 4 ƋƋ, Hirosaki City, Kitazono, 15.VI.2013, D. Kato leg.; 1 ♀, same data as previous except 26.VI.2013; 2 ƋƋ, same data as previous except 27.VII.2013; 4 ƋƋ, Tsugaru City, Ushigatachô, 27.IX.2014, D. Kato leg. (all in BLKU).
Diagnosis. Body length: 3.8–6.2 mm. Wing length: 2.8–4.5 mm. Body (Fig. 29) entirely black. Parafacial with a few tiny setae in upper part. Antenna with first flagellomere small and round, shorter than 1/4 of eye height. Wing (Fig. 33) and calypteres tinged with black, apex of wing hyaline in female; wing veins black; vein M joining vein R4+5 at an acute angle. Abdomen without pruinosity; sternite 5 (Fig. 15) bilobed posteriorly, lobes almost as long as basal part. Male terminalia (Figs 16–20): surstylus long oval in lateral view; cercus wide at base, strongly narrowing toward tip; bacilliform sclerites as three small plates, the lateral pair rod-shaped, distinctly longer than the oval, middle one; pregonite wide, with a rod-shaped lobe bearing a long seta at middle; postgonite bladeshaped, almost straight along its entire length, with a long seta at middle; epiphallus rod-shaped, not swollen at apex; distiphallus truncated and simple at apex, without protuberances; ejaculatory apodeme distinctly widened at apex.
Distribution. Japan (Honshu), Europe (including Sicily and Sardinia), North Africa, Israel, Cape Verde Islands, eastern North America, southern South America (Cerretti & Pape 2009).
Host(s). Unknown in Japan. Oniscus asellus Linnaeus and Porcellio scaber (Latreille) (Oniscidae: Isopoda) in North America (Jones 1948; Arnaud 1978).
Remarks. This is the first record of this species from Japan and the easternmost record from the Palaearctic region. According to the most recent revision of Melanophora Meigen (Cerretti & Pape 2009), this genus comprises 5 species in the Holarctic and Afrotropical regions. Melanophora roralis is similar to M. chia Cerretti & Pape, which was described from Sardinia (Italy). However, it differs by the shorter petiole of cell r4+5 (as long as post-angular section of vein M), black or dark brown head and thorax of the female, and the male cerci enlarged basally. The species has a very wide distribution and its present discovery in urban environments in Japan may be interpreted as due to introduction with foreign woodlice, as has happened also with other rhinophorid species in the Neotropical Region (Pape 2010; O’Hara et al. 2015).
description: Published as part of Kato, Daichi & Tachi, Takuji, 2016, Revision of the Rhinophoridae (Diptera: Calyptratae) of Japan, pp. 81-92 in Zootaxa 4158 (1) on pages 86-87, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4158.1.4, http://zenodo.org/record/272179