Lonchaea sororcula Hackman

V. KOVALEV, 1976: Ent. Obozr., 55: 935 Faunistic and Ecological material on flies of the genus Lonchaea (diptera, Lonchaeidae) from Tuva

Lonchaea sororcula Hackman, 1956 (sec. typ.).

Vicinity of Saryg—Sep. Males and females reared from larvae.

The Tuvinian specimens are undoubtedly L.sororcula. Investigation of them enables us to update the diagnosis of the species prepared by Hackman (1956) from an investigation of a single male.
Some of the hairs on the frons are more than half as long as an orbital bristle. Orbital plates bearing I-3 hairs above bristle. Length of 3rd antennal segment 1.8—2.2 times its width. Length of stigmal segment of costal vein 3—4 times length of anterior crossvein.

Female (first description). Body hairs sparser and shorter than on male. Frons less densely pollinose than in male, with weak silky sheen, without an impression; least width of frons (on level of upper margin of lunule) equal to Its height; its width on level of ante¬rior ocellus 1. 2 times its least width. Abdominal tergite I with brownish pollen; pollen on tergite fl ex¬tending from anterior margin onto disc as a rearward-narrowing spot; broad areas along sides of tergite and its posterior margin devoid of pollen; traces of pollen on anterior margin of tergite 3 this tergite and follow¬ing tergites otherwise devoid of pollen.

Ovipositor (Figs. 4—5) with penultimate segment narrowing weakly and uniformly toward apex; this seg¬ment sharply recurved upward subapically; last seg¬ment, conversely, located in a horizontal plane; consequently, the distal end of the ovipositor, seen in pro¬file (Fig. 4), appears S—shaped; on the penultimate seg¬ment there is a subapical pair of very long dorsolaterally extended hairs separated by a distance that is 4 times the diameter of the theca of the hair (in the similar L.. affinis these hairs are converged to a distance equal to the diameter of the theca). Seen from the dorsal (or ventral) side the last segment appears as a continuation of the penultimate segment; its lateral margins are slightly concave, weakly converging toward the base of the subapical hairs, thereafter converging abruptly to the angular apex (in L..affinis there is a short con¬striction at the apex of the penultimate segment and the base of the final segment, as a result of which the ovipositor has a short neck at their boundary; in L.laxa the Last segment does not narrow caudad to the base of the subapical hairs); the segment is 1.5—1.7 times as long as wide; the hairs on it, of which there are 8-9 pairs, are dark and long; their arrangement and length are the same as in L. affinis