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Aphiochaeta minor Zetterstedt

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Habitat

Darlingtonia californica pitchers, feeding from their captures.

Distribution (See Map)[Click the map for a larger view]

FMJ: Mt. Eddy, near Sisson, Siskiyou County, California.

Aldrich: Brookings, South Dakota

Brues :

      • Massachusetts—New Bedford
      • New Jersey—Boontown
      • Idaho—Hagerman
      • New York— Ithaca
      • California—Monterey
      • Ohio—Salinville
      • Europe
      • North America

Malloch: Biscayne Bay, FL; Mt. Washington, NH

Description (composite from Aldrich, Brues, and Malloch)

Head—black; front longer than broad, shining, convex, a few minute hairs slanting toward middle line; four postantennal bristles of equal size, the upper pair much wider apart; ocellar prominence defined by a very fine impressed line, which continues down the front; center pair of bristles of first row much below outer pair, and hardly further from eye-margin.

Antennae—brownish black; arista short, barely as long as front. Palpi rather broader at the tips than usual; those of the male brown or black, large, with a few black bristles at tip; of the female, normal, yellow; proboscis small, yellow.

Thorax—black, with few bristles; mesopleura bare; dorsum with one pair of dorsocentral macrochaetae and two marginal scutellar bristles; halteres light yellow.

Legs—brown to black; fore coxae of male, fore coxae and fore legs of female yellowish; for legs without conspicuous bristles; middle and hind tibiae each with one long spur at apex; hind tibiae stout and strongly setulose; in the male, these setulae rather widely separated; in the female, more crowded and less distinct.

Wings—more or less infuscated, often quite strongly so; thickened costal margin with short delicate[Aphiochaeta minor wing] bristles; first division half again as long as second; thickened costa of male not reaching middle, that of the female to the middle of the wing; third vein furcated; the fourth and seventh veins nearly straight.

Abdomen—black, in the female tapering and with last segment slender and cylindrical. Length 1.5mm; wing, 1.3mm.

Bibliography

    • 1848. Zetterstedt. Dipt. Scand., vol 7, p 2864, species 13.
    • 1892. Aldrich, Can. Ent., XXIV, 145-146, il. (Phora minuta)
    • 1903. Brues. Trans. Am. Ent . Soc., XXIX, 366, il . (Phora minuta)
    • 1912. Malloch. Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. XLIII, 494.
    • 1910. Morse. Ann. Rpt. N.J. State Mus., 1909, 761. (minuta Ald.) 

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