Rachicerus rafaeli Pujol-Luz & Godoi 2025, new species
Creators: name: Pujol-Luz, José Roberto
name: Godoi, Fabio Siqueira Pitaluga De
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Xylophagidae
Rachicerus
Rachicerus rafaeli

description: Rachicerus rafaeli Pujol-Luz & Godoi, new species
(Figs 6–15)
Diagnosis. Body blackish; femora, tibiae and first tarsomeres striped in black and white; antenna with flagellomeres pectinate slims and lanceolate.
Measurements: body length: 6.8–8.8 mm; antenna: 1.8–2.3 mm; number of antennal flagellomeres: 20; wings: 5.6–6.6 mm. Head: hemispherical, wider than thorax; front flat, shining black, with two longitudinal ridges running from ocellar plate and converging on suture that divides antennal plate in half; frontal plate large with small whitish setae (pruinosity like) around the antennae in inferior margin; fronto-orbital plate depressed and bare. Compound eyes dichoptic and bare; vertex with ocellar triangle developed, black; ocellus brownish yellow. Occiput shinning black well developed and very pilose (Figs. 6 – 7). Palps brownish, club-like and 2-segmented. Labellum brownish, membranous with elongate setae. Antennae elongate more than two times as long as width of head, with 20 spatulate flagellomeres, last flagellomeres truncate (Figs. 6, 8). Thorax: predominantly black and bare; postpronotal lobe blackish; scutum with small and sparse pilosity; anepimeron whitish; laterotergites shinning black and entirely bare; scutellum blackish, with dense pilosity (Fig. 6). Wings: hyaline, inconspicuous pterostigma between veins Sc and R 1; R S stem curved upwards before bifurcation of radial sectors; halters whitish (Fig. 6). Legs: coxae and trochanters black; fore leg with femora black, tibia and first tarsomeres white; mid and hind legs with femur and tibia with proximal half whitish and distal half black; first tarsomere of both legs whitish; empodia pulvilliform (Fig. 6). Abdomen: entirely shinning dark black, with dense small pilosity; intersegmental membranes whitish, giving black and white striped appearance to abdomen; terminalia conical with dense pilosity (Fig. 6). Genital capsule (epandrium and hypandrium) elliptical in general form; gonocoxal apodemes conspicuously long, flat and curved inwards, arising near base of gonostylus (Figs. 9 – 11); phallus tubular, long and curved, moderately depressed from median surface to glans pore (Figs. 14 – 15); gonostylus long and curved, with upper tip slightly larger than basal tip; interior margin deeply concave, covered by small and sparse pilosity (Figs. 12 – 13). Cercus long, spoon-shaped with small, sparse pilosity.
Female. Unknown.
Etymology: This name is given to honor Professor José Albertino Rafael, our friend and illustrious Brazilian dipterist.
Geographical distribution. BRAZIL, states of Amazonas and Maranhão.
Type material. The male HOLOTYPE is housed in the Coleção Zoológica do Maranhão (CZMA), Caxias, Maranhão, Brazil. Labeled: Brasil (MA), C[ândido] Mendes, Fazenda 7 Irmãos, 01 o 52’06”S, 45 o 45’59.7”W [White label]/ Arm [adilha] Malaise, 15-31.xii.2018, F. Limeira-de-Oliveira, D. Limeira & J.S. Brito, cols. [White label]/ Holótipo [Red label]/ CZMA600 [White label]. The holotype is in good condition, only missing the lack of the right fore leg, the mid legs and the tips of the antennae. PARATYPE male housed in the Coleção de Invertebrados do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. The specimen is fixed in glycerol in a microvial, labeled: Brasil, Amazonas, 26 Km NE Manaus, Reserva Ducke, 23.VIII.1988 [white label]/ J.A. Rafael & Socorro Rosa col. [white label]/ Parátipo [Green label].
description: Published as part of Pujol-Luz, José Roberto & Godoi, Fabio Siqueira Pitaluga De, 2025, Three new species of the genus Rachicerus Walker (Diptera, Xylophagidae) from Brazil, pp. 294-306 in Zootaxa 5613 (2) on pages 299-301, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5613.2.5, http://zenodo.org/record/15216545