Thread subject: Diptera.info :: Chloropidae... or the likes?

Posted by von Tschirnhaus on 16-05-2013 15:20
#6

Lipara lucens Meigen, 1830 (Chloropidae, Oscinellinae). This phantastic images shows the neatly parted golden hairs on the thorax and a character of all Chloropidae, see below. The adjective lucens means "shining" and describes these hairs which densely cover the robust fly, different from two other blackish Lipara species, pullitarsis and rufitarsis. L. similis is smaller, less robust, with longer silvery hairs. The larvae of the valid 5 European Lipara spp. produce galls in reed (Phragmites australis). These cigar-like galls, heavily lignified only in L. lucens, are the focus of a great many of scientific publications and dissertations. The images optimally show the kink by which the most posterior longitudinal vein, the CuA1 (in earlier times called M3+4), is interrupted near the middle of the “discal medial cell” (dm). This character demonstates the very position where the lost terminal closing vein of the anal cell (the CuA2) had disappeared during the early evolution. All world Chloropidae (including the Tertiary amber species 45 million years ago) miss this cell and vein and, with few exceptions, possess this kink and interruption; compare Denisia 26 (2009): 171-212.

Edited by von Tschirnhaus on 17-05-2013 10:25