Epistrophe cryptica Doczkal and Schmid 1994
Creators: name: Prokhorov, A. V.
name: Popov, G. V.
name: Shparyk, V. Yu.
name: Vasilyeva, Yu. S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Syrphidae
Epistrophe
Epistrophe cryptica

description: Epistrophe cryptica Doczkal and Schmid, 1994 (figs 47–52)   
 M a t e r i a l e x a m i n e d. Ukraine. Ivano-Frankivsk Region: Khom’yakivka env., 48.861022 N 24.819297 E, edge of deciduous forest, 26.05.2019, 1 } (V. Shparyk).   
 D i s t r i b u t i o n:uncertain, due to confusion with other related species until recently. Confirmed from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,? Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland; Russia (European part, Siberia, the Far East); Japan (Holinka & Mazánek, 1997; Nielsen, 1999; Mielczarek, 2009 –2020; Reemer et al., 2009; Tóth, 2011; Haarto & Kerppola, 2014; Barkalov & Mutin, 2018; Speight et al., 2018; Van Steenis et al., 2019; Speight, 2020; Wakkie, 2020); Ukraine (first record).   
 Diagnosis.The Epistrophe cryptica female is most similar to the female of E. obscuripes (Strobl, 1910) (figs 53–58) in sharing the following characters: basal medial (bm) cell of wing entirely covered in microtrichia; mesoscutum mostly brightly shining, without distinct pruinescence dorsally; tergite 5 partly black; scutellum with only yellow macrotrichia or with just a few black macrotrichia along hind margin; frons entirely black (figs 51, 52, 57, 58); anterior side of hind tibia entirely or partly with yellow macrotrichia (figs 49, 55). Epistrophe cryptica can be distinguished from E. obscuripes by: arista yellow, at least in basal half (fig. 51) (in E. obscuripes, arista entirely black, as in fig. 57); anterior side of hind femur with black macrotrichia apically (fig. 48) (in E. obscuripes, anterior side of hind femur almost only with yellow macrotrichia, as in fig. 54); anterior side of hind tibia covered in a mixture of black and yellow macrotrichia (fig. 49) (in E. obscuripes, anterior side of hind tibia entirely covered in yellow macrotrichia, as in fig. 55).   
 The species is also very similar in appearance to E. melanostoma (Zetterstedt, 1843), E. nitidicollis (Meigen, 1822) and E. olgae Mutin, 1990. From E. nitidicollis and E. olgae it differs by: wing entirely covered in microtrichia (in others, wing with basal medial (bm) cell 20% or more bare of microtrichia); scutellum with only yellow macrotrichia or with just a few black macrotrichia along hind margin (in others, at least one third of the scutellum with black macrotrichia); frons entirely black with gray pruinescence that do not look like separate maculae (figs 51, 52) (in others, frons with yellow anterior part and usually with two well developed yellowish-gray or golden-yellow maculae of pruinescens; in E. olgae, frons entirely with dense pruinescence except for the anterior part, and the maculae along the compound eye margin often merge almost into a continuous band). Additionally, E. cryptica differs from E. nitidicollis by the yellow arista, at least in basal half (fig. 51) (in E. nitidicollis, the arista is black, rarely it can be brownish or yellowish).   
 Epistrophe cryptica is very similar to E. melanostoma in having: wing entirely covered in microtrichia; scutellum with only yellow macrotrichia or with just a few black macrotrichia along the hind margin; anterior surface of hind femur with black macrotrichia on apical third or more of its length (fig. 48). From E. melanostoma it can be separated by: frons entirely black (figs 51, 52) (in E. melanostoma, frons with yellow anterior part); hind tibia with the anterior side covered in a mixture of black and yellow macrotrichia (fig. 49) (in E. melanostoma, anterior side of hind tibia entirely with black macrotrichia).
description: Published as part of Prokhorov, A. V., Popov, G. V., Shparyk, V. Yu. & Vasilyeva, Yu. S., 2020, New Records Of Hoverflies (Diptera, Syrphidae) From Ukraine. V, pp. 237-258 in Zoodiversity 54 (3) on pages 250-251, DOI: 10.15407/zoo2020.03.237, http://zenodo.org/record/6455526