Calycomyza inselbergensis 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
Calycomyza
Calycomyza inselbergensis

description: Calycomyza inselbergensis Boucher, n. sp.
(Figs 4; 5)
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 70413387-20D4-475F-961F-B2FF18E699F4
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 habitat (inselberg) of the type specimen.
DIAGNOSIS. — This species differs from other Neotropical species of Calycomyza by the following features: halter and notopleuron pale brown; calypter and fringe brown; orbital plate brown to lower ors; postpronotum and anepisternum almost completely brown; male genitalia with a very large ring-like sclerite at the base of distiphallus.
DISTRIBUTION. — French Guiana.
HOST PLANTS. — Possibly Verbenaceae (see Remarks).
DESCRIPTION
Male
Orbital plate not projecting in front of eye in profile; frons narrow, width including orbital plates 0.22 mm at midpoint; two reclinate ors and two weaker inclinate ori; orbital setulae sparse, short and reclinate, in one row; first flagellomere small, rounded apically with short white pubescence; arista long with distinct pubescence (Fig. 4A, C); gena at midpoint about 0.1 × eye height; clypeus narrow with anterior margin rounded (Fig. 4B); small triangular epistoma present (Fig. 4B); two well-developed postsutural dc distant from each other, and one weaker third postsutural dc (on right side only); prsc absent; acrostichal setulae in about 7-8 rows; mid tibia with two approximate posterolateral setae; wing length approximately 1.7 mm (wing bent) with last section of M 4 1.6 × penultimate section.
Colour
Frons yellow; upper orbital plate brown to lower ors (Fig. 4C); antenna brown; face apparently partly pale brown (partly hidden by the antennae); palpus brown; clypeus dull brown, paler brown centrally; mesonotum and scutellum shiny brown; postpronotum brown except for narrowly yellow hind corner; notopleuron brownish (Fig. 4A), slightly paler, yellowish ventrally; anepisternum, katepisternum and anepimeron brown; legs brown except for narrowly yellow fore knee; calypter and fringe brown; halter slightly darkened, pale brown (Fig. 4A).
Male genitalia
Distiphallus in the shape of two long tubules with apical section bent to almost 90° and basal section surrounded by a large ring-like sclerite that extends far beyond the width of the tubules in ventral and lateral view (Fig. 5A, B); length of distal tubules anterior to the ring-like sclerite 0.1 mm (Fig. 5A, arrow a), equal to the length of mesophallus (Fig. 5A, arrow b); epandrium with numerous short internal spines (Fig. 5C); surstyli with short spines and a few (4-5) long setae on upper margin (Fig. 5C); hypandrium narrow and slightly constricted near midpoint; ejaculatory apodeme large with wide blade (Fig. 5D).
REMARKS
The male genitalia of this new species are most similar to those of C. verbenivora Spencer, 1963, which feeds on various plants in the family Verbenaceae. The type specimen of the latter species from Venezuela, illustrated in Spencer (1963), apparently has the lower tubule broken off (see comment in Spencer 1973b: 49), but the upper tubule is complete, and it is distinctly longer than the mesophallus, quite different from C. inselbergensis Boucher, n. sp. Another difference is the ring-like sclerite at the base of the distiphallus which is distinctly wider in C. inselbergensis Boucher, n. sp. Additional illustrations of the phallus of C. verbenivora from Argentina (Valladares 1981) and Peru (Korytkowsky 2014) more closely resemble the phallus of C. inselbergensis Boucher, n. sp. (except for the size of the ring-like sclerite), but C. verbenivora shows significant external differences that are diagnostic: calypter yellow with fringe partially to completely yellow; arista virtually bare; orbital plate bright yellow; and notopleuron, posterior half of postpronotum and upper posterior corner of anepisternum bright yellow. Externally C. inselbergensis Boucher, n. sp. is most similar to C. verbenae (Hering, 1951), a species known from southern United States and Brazil (Spencer 1963; Esposito 1994), but the male genitalia of the two species are distinct. Calycomyza verbenae is separated externally from C. verbenivora by the darker, distinctly black calypteral fringe and black face (Spencer 1963). Like C. verbenivora, C. verbenae feeds on species of Verbena L. and other plants in the family Verbenaceae (Benavent-Corai et al. 2005). This species was initially listed as morphospecies Calycomyza Mit- 2 in Boucher & Pollet (2021), along with an additional female specimen. After reconsideration, the female specimen is not included here as a paratype due to uncertain conspecificity. The female differs from the male by its yellow halter, yellow face, mid tibial setae that are further apart, and a shiny brown clypeus.
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 pages 19-21, DOI: 10.5252/zoosystema2025v47a2, http://zenodo.org/record/14670952