Abstract
BackgroundThe phorid fly genus Megaselia Rondani is a large, poorly-known taxon whose species are found worldwide.New informationA new species of Megaselia Rondani, M. simunorum, is described from both urban and rural sites in southern California. With a large area of white colour on the posterior part of the abdominal dorsum, it closely resembles the much more common species M. sulphurizona, but M. simunorum has distinctly thicker ventral setae on the abdomen and a differently-shaped white spot.
Highlights
The enormous genus Megaselia Rondani has many difficult-to-separate species, but a few seem almost immediately identifiable, such as the common western North American species Megaselia sulphurizona Borgmeier. This species, originally described from just eight specimens from California, Washington and Idaho, USA, is widespread within western USA and is one of the most abundant species collected in urban Los Angeles by the BioSCAN project (Brown and Hartop 2016)
Borgmeier was working with air-dried specimens, in which colour can be distorted, and we found that fresh specimens usually have a white spot
Most specimens are stored in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (LACM), some were placed in the collections of the California Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CSCA)
Summary
The phorid fly genus Megaselia Rondani is a large, poorly-known taxon whose species are found worldwide. A new species of Megaselia Rondani, M. simunorum, is described from both urban and rural sites in southern California. With a large area of white colour on the posterior part of the abdominal dorsum, it closely resembles the much more common species M. sulphurizona, but M. simunorum has distinctly thicker ventral setae on the abdomen and a differently-shaped white spot
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