Tachydromia sivasensis Zouhair & Grootaert & Gençer & Kettani 2025, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Zouhair, Laila
name: Grootaert, Patrick
name: Gençer, Lütfiye
name: Kettani, Kawtar
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Hybotidae
Tachydromia
Tachydromia sivasensis

description: Tachydromia sivasensis Zouhair & Grootaert sp. nov.
(Figs 9, 10)
Type material. HOLOTYPE. Sivas prov. ♂, Yýldýzeli, 39.788204 N, 36.214314 E, 1185 m, grassland, 07.vi.2009, sweep net, leg. L. Gençer. PARATYPES: Sivas prov. 1♂, 1♀, same data as holotype.
Diagnosis. Blackish brown species of connexa- group, with occiput entirely greyish pollinose, palpus blackish brown, somewhat elongate, slender, bearing long black subapical seta. Thorax entirely shiny. Legs almost entirely dark brown, fore femur with slight round excision near base beneath. Wings wholly tinged with brown, the brown coloration more distinct along costal margin, and inclusive of base and apex right up to submarginal cell at base, and along cubital vein. Halteres brownish.
Description. Male. Length: body 2.5 mm, wing 2.3 mm. Head black in ground color. Eyes slightly extending beyond ocellar tubercle and almost touching on vertex. Occiput entirely greyish pollinose, covered with short black setae, with a pair of long black inclinate verticals. Ocellar tubercle pollinose, with moderately long black anterior ocellars, posteriors very minutes. Frons pollinose, long, narrow than postpedicel, almost parallel-sided, slightly widened toward ocellar tubercle. Antenna with scape and base of pedicel, paler, postpedicel and stylus brown, postpedicel short ovate, arista about 1.5X as long as rest of antenna. Proboscis blackish brown. Palpus blackish brown, somewhat elongate (slightly longer than half of proboscis), slender, rounded apically, bearing long black subapical seta, with scattered black setulae.
Thorax black in ground color, entirely shiny. Postpronotal lobe dusted in posterior part, large, lacking conspicuous setae, with some minute pale setulae. Mesonotum with 2 black notopleurals (1 moderately long with 1 shorter seta) accompanied with 2 minute setae, 1 postalar and two pairs of scutellar bristles (the inner longer). No acrostichals, dorsocentrals uniserial and very minute, prescutellar pair somewhat longer. Legs almost entirely blackish brown; fore leg with coxae at apex, trochanter, femur at base on about 1/4, tibia at extreme base and knees yellowish, metatarsus of fore and mid legs yellowish at base. Coxae with pale unmodified setae. Fore femur distinctly thickened, with row of fine paler anteroventral setulae and row of dark posteroventral setulae becoming paler and slightly longer basally. Fore tibia spindle-shaped clothed with short brownish setulae. Mid femur with slightly deep round excision near base beneath, bearing row of short posteroventral spine-like setae becoming longer towards base, with one long spinelike seta anteroventrally. Mid tibia with hardly prominent apical projection bearing ventral very small spinules, clothed with short dark setulae. Hind leg long and slender, femur with row of longer dark setae beneath. Tarsi slender, hind tarsi longer. Wing normally developed, rounded at apex, with unmodified venation; wholly tinged with brown, the brown coloration more distinct along costal margin, and inclusive of base and apex right up to submarginal cell at base, and along cubital vein. Vein R 2+3 straight. Veins R 4+5 and M 1+2 parallel toward wing-apex. Crossveins r-m and bm-cu separated. Haltere brownish.
Abdomen largely black in ground color, greyish pollinose, covered with scattered brownish setae. Terminalia (Fig. 10). Right surstylus large, rounded, its border lacking spinules set with short bristles only. Right surstylus articulating with right epandrial lamella (Fig. 10 A, B). Cerci short (Fig. 10C). Left epandrial lamella large, its tip at the inside densely set with microtrichia (Fig. 10C). Left border with a lobe on basal half, set with fine setulae (Fig. 10D).
Female. Resembling male.
Etymology. The species is named after the province of Sivas where was found.
Remarks. By having brownish halteres, the new species would run to T. halterata Collin, 1926 within the Chvala’s (1970) key to Palaearctic species of Tachydromia. Both species share many other fundamental characters (short arista, dark brown palpi, shiny thorax, 2 notopleurals, two pairs of scutellars, legs mostly blackish brown, mid femur with deep excision beneath near base and same coloration of wings), but T. halterata has shiny occiput and frons while they are pollinose in the new species.
description: Published as part of Zouhair, Laila, Grootaert, Patrick, Gençer, Lütfiye & Kettani, Kawtar, 2025, Turkish Hybotidae (Diptera: Empidoidea): description of six new species with additional data, pp. 503-524 in Zootaxa 5609 (4) on pages 513-514, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5609.4.3, http://zenodo.org/record/15215427