Empidideicus (Cyrtoides) primitus Gharali, Evenhuis & Moghbeli 2025, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Gharali, Babak
name: Evenhuis, Neal L.
name: Moghbeli, Sajjad
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Mythicomyiidae
Empidideicus
Empidideicus primitus

description: Empidideicus (Cyrtoides) primitus Gharali, Evenhuis & Moghbeli sp. nov.
(Figs 1, 2a)
Types. Holotype female and 5 female paratypes (one dissected), Jiroft: Narab village, 28°55'12.9" N, 57°31'49.4" E, 16 May 2022, S. Moghbeli. Holotype in HMIM; paratypes in HMIM and BG.
Diagnosis. Proboscis fleshy, shorter than head height; frons completely yellow; Occiput medially black, laterally yellow; mesonotum with three longitudinal blackish brown stripes, prescutellar area yellow; scutellum completely yellow; legs yellow; genital fork U-shaped with two processes on lateral arms, spermathecal reservoirs clubbed with shallow cylindrical invagination.
Description. Female (Figs. 1, 2a). Head (Fig. 1b): slightly higher than long; eyes dichoptic, separated at vertex by 2.9 times distance between lateral ocelli; occiput medially black, laterally yellow, postgena yellow; frons short, slightly depressed medially, completely yellow; face yellow, tip of oral margin tan to brown; antennae (Fig.1c) yellow, first flagellomere brownish yellow; scape short, subtrapezoidal; pedicel subconical, wider than long; first flagellomere lanceolate, length about 3 times width; second flagellomere slightly more than one-third length of first flagellomere, with minute transparent apical style; mentum yellow; clypeus yellow; proboscis yellow, fleshy, shorter than head height; labrum sclerotized, stiff, pointed apically, shorter than proboscis; palpus not evident.
Thorax (Fig. 1b). Mesonotum yellow, with three brownish yellow longitudinal stripes, middle stripe starting from anterior margin of mesonotum and ending well before than scutellum, leaving large yellow prescutellar area; with two triangular brownish yellow spots next to transverse suture, three brown bristles behind suture, dorsolaterally from humeral callus to post alar callus yellow; humeral calli yellow; postalar calli yellow; scutellum yellow; mesonotal disc and dorsum of scutellum with short fine black hairs; pleura bare, anepisternum yellow, anterior and ventral margins of anepisternum black, katepisternum black except upper margin narrowly yellow, anepimeron yellow, anterior and ventral margins black; meron black, upper margin yellow; halter stem yellow, knob white.
Legs. Yellow except coxae basally narrowly black.
Wing (Fig. 1c). Elongate, length 2.8 times width; hyaline; veins brown; costa ends slightly beyond end of R 4+5; vein Sc incomplete; Rs faded basally at connection with R 1; R 4+5 slightly bowed at apical one-third; vein M 1 curved toward wing margin; M 2 straight; M 4 straight; CuA straight, reaching to wing margin; anal vein effaced, not reaching to wing margin; fringe of hair on posterior margin of wing well shortest at wing tip becoming longer and more sparse toward base.
Abdomen. Tergite II blackish brown with posterior margin narrowly yellow, other tergites yellow with anterior margin brownish black, sternites yellow, last sternite brown.
Genitalia (Fig. 2a): Genital fork thin, U-shaped, with an inwardly oriented process on each lateral arm; spermathecal reservoir clubbed, sclerotized brown, basal part yellow, longer than wide, invagination cylindrical, shallow; apical spermathecal duct slightly shorter than length of spermathecal reservoir; thin, transparent; sperm pump short, about half of reservoir length, slightly sclerotized, without evident valves apically or basally; basal duct long, about 6.5 times sperm pump, leading to very short sclerotized common duct.
Male. Unknown.
Etymology. The specific name is derived from the Greek word πρώτα (= first) and refers to the first record of the subgenus Cyrtoides from Iran.
Distribution. This new species is only known from Narab village (Jiroft City) in the south of Iran. This village is located in a mountainous area with the hot and semi-arid climate (Fig. 7).
Remarks. The color intensity of different sclerites of adults (specially the colored pattern on mesonotum) in the genus Empidideicus, similar to other mythicomyiids, is somewhat variable in that it depends on the gender of specimen or the time between collecting and adult emerging from the pupa so some teneral specimens are much paler; and those specimens should be treated with more caution especially when describing new species, and it would be better that genitalia are checked or referred. We photographed one of the paratypes of E. (Cyrtoides) primitus sp. nov. (Figs. 1c, d) that is teneral specimen in order to compare with the holotype (Figs. 1a, b).
Evenhuis (2009) when was studying the species of the genus Empidideicus in the United Arabian Emirates (UAE), described two species of the genus in the subgenus Empidideicus that subsequently transferred to the subgenus Cyrtoides (Evenhuis, 2024). Our new species, Empidideicus (Cyrtoides) primitus sp. nov., in morphological characters especially mesonotal pattern and the color of occiput, is very similar to E. psephenyps Evenhuis, 2009 but they are easily separated by the color of hind femora that in E. psephenyps has a brown spot (femora is completely yellow in our species). Genital forks and the other parts of the female genitalia are completely different in these two species. For example, the reservoir in our species is basally hyaline and clubbed (Fig. 2a) but in E. psephenyps Evenhuis, 2009 it is globular (Fig. 2b).
description: Published as part of Gharali, Babak, Evenhuis, Neal L. & Moghbeli, Sajjad, 2025, Three new species of the genus Empidideicus Becker, 1907 (Diptera, Mythicomyiidae) from Iran with the first record of the subgenus Cyrtoides Engel, 1933, pp. 529-541 in Zootaxa 5604 (4) on pages 530-533, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5604.4.5, http://zenodo.org/record/15214128