A New Genus of Tachydromiinae from South Africa and Turkmenistan (Diptera: Empidoidea: Hybotidae).

Bradley J Sinclair,Jeffrey M Cumming,Igor V Shamshev

doi:10.3390/insects13020171

Abstract

Simple SummaryA new hybotid dance fly (or fast-running fly) genus, Parallelodromia is described along with three new species. The new genus is recorded from South Africa and Turkmenistan. Details are provided regarding the morphology of the flies and the wide geographical gap between the species is discussed.Parallelodromia gen. nov. is described with the inclusion of two new species from South Africa (P. glenlyonensis sp. nov. and P. hantamica sp. nov.) and a new species (P. turkmenistanica sp. nov.) from Turkmenistan. The genus is fully illustrated along with a discussion of its unusual disjunct geographic distribution and its phylogenetic relationship within the Tachydromiinae tribe Drapetidini.

Highlights

In their treatment of the Afrotropical Hybotidae, Sinclair and Cumming [1] referred to a distinctive new genus as “Undescribed genus B” based at the time on one undescribedSouth African species
A second South African species has been recognized and the third author discovered another new species from Turkmenistan in Middle Asia, which appeared to be congeneric with the two South African species
The purpose of this paper is to describe this new genus along with its three newly included species

Summary

Introduction

In their treatment of the Afrotropical Hybotidae, Sinclair and Cumming [1] referred to a distinctive new genus as “Undescribed genus B” based at the time on one undescribed. The purpose of this paper is to describe this new genus along with its three newly included species. The new genus belongs to the Tachydromiinae tribe Drapetidini (corrected spelling of Drapetini, see Sabrosky [2]) as characterized by Sinclair and Cumming [1,3] and Wahlberg and Johanson [4]. The phylogenetic relationship of the new genus to other Drapetidini genera is briefly discussed along with its unusual disjunct geographic distribution. The tribe currently comprises 19 genera, with about 550 species worldwide [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]

Materials and Methods

Taxonomy

Key to species of Parallelodromia

Key to Species of Parallelodromia

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Discussion