Lonchaea viriosa
Description: Fairly large for this group; length of male 2.5 mm. Black, with
metallic-blue reflections. Antenna reaching beyond mouth margin. Frons with a distinct median impression and shallow lateral grooves. Calyptrae dirty-whitish,
with pale brownish margins and yellowish fringes. Wings clear, with brown veins.
Two basal segments of each tarsus yellow.
Male.—Head distinctly wider than high (8.5:6.75). Frons shining black; rather
heavily pollinose below, the pollen apparent in oblique ventral views; four-fifths
as wide at lunule as at anterior ocellus; distance between anterior ocellus and lunule
scarcely greater than width at lunule (4.25:4.00); with a distinct oval depression in
middle; on each side of depression with a weak longitudinal fova which converges
toward lunule. Orbital plate polished blue-black; bare above orbital bristle. Posterior
ocelli close together; twice as far from anterior ocellus as from each other. Face
moderately heavily pollinose; parafacial sublinear. Cheek very narrow; shortest
distance between compound eye and mouth margin three-fourths maximum width
" | third antennal segment. Antenna long; reaching well beyond mouth margin;
ujcick; third segment narrowly orange-brown at inner base, over twice as long as
wide (6.50-2.25); arista entirely dark brown.
Thorax shining black, with faint bluish reflections, scutellum conspicuously
pollinose; slightly bronzy-green, with three lateral setulae on each side. Mesopleuron
with three or four posterior and three anterodorsal bristles. Sternopleuron with
one strong bristle and several weaker hairs in front of it. With a single stigmatal
bristle.
Legs black; two basal segments of all tarsi yellow. Wings clear, with dark brown
veins. Calyptrae white, with pale brownish borders and yellowish fringes.
Abdomen but little longer than wide; shining, with distinct blue reflections.
Genitaha (Figs. 43, 44) broad as in lambiana. Epandrium rectangular in lateral
aspect; posteroventral angle somewhat tooth-like in ventral view. Cerci broad;
with a heavily sclerotized swelling near base (best seen in lateral views). Surstylus
with a blade-like process projecting caudad under bases of cerci; anteriorly with a
strong, mesally-directed tooth; inside, near midline, with a spike-like posterior, and
)poon-shaped anterior process, i.e., surstyli enclosing two pairs of processes almost
directly above aedeagus. Aedeagus sinuate, with a bulbous apex. Left pregonite
stronger than right one. Postgonite with a strong setula and about four smaller
ones.
Female.—Not definitely known. A single female is tentatively placed as of this
species but I am not confident that the association is correct. It differs from the
male as follows:
Considerably larger; length 3.5 mm. More bluish, especially on thorax. Frons
broader and less narrowed anteriorly (6.0:5.5); lateral groove more pronounced.
Shortest distance between oral margin and compound eye greater; almost as wide
as widest part of third antennal segment. Third antennal segment longer in propor¬
tion to its width (8.0:2.6). Calyptrae, margins and fringes paler. Wing with paler
veins.
Ovipositor (Figs. 77, 78) in this specimen similar to that of lambiana but longer
and without a short kink in lateral rods. Spermatheca (Fig. 62) coarsely wrinkled pyriform in outline. Gland at point where sperznatheeal ducts join the common
oviduct (Fig. 69) elongate.