Eudexia mellea ( Giglio-Tos, 1893 ), 2025

Santis, Marcelo Domingos De & Couri, Márcia Souto, 2025, An additional Mexican species for the Neotropical genus Eudexia Brauer and Bergenstamm (Tachinidae, Dexiini), with a redescription and lectotype fixation, Zootaxa 5636 (1), pp. 188-192 : 188-190

Eudexia mellea ( Giglio-Tos, 1893) comb. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:0FAC81C3-9AAE-4B7B-9BC2-308E8A4B0342

( Figure 1 )

Hystrichodexia mellea Giglio-Tos, 1893: 2 . References: Giglio-Tos (1894: 58, complete description of male); Guimarães (1971: 30, catalog); O’Hara et al. (2020: 53, checklist of World Tachinidae ). Type locality: Mexico, Oaxaca.

Lectotype designation for Hystrichodexia mellea Giglio-Tos, 1893

Lectotype ♂, labeled as follows: [first label uncomprehensible]; ‘Oaxaca’; ‘ Hystrichodexia / mellea/ ♂ Giglio-Tos’; ‘ HOLOTYPE ♂ / of Hystrichodexia / mellea G.-T./ examined 1982/ D.M. Wood’; ‘Dexia 1. ♂ / Oaxaca (Sallé)’ [Specimen in good condition, but with mold, mainly at the head, antennae partially broken and barely visible].

Recognition. Large tachinid, with scutum brownish, scutellum tawny to yellowish and abdomen broad, yellowish, with triangular black spot at apical middle of syntergite 1+2 and tergite 3, with blackish spline-like setae throughout the abdomen.

Diagnosis. Vertex broad, about 0.35x of head width in dorsal view, at most 0.15 in other species. Legs yellowish. Abdomen tawny-yellowish, but with syntergite 1+2 and tergite 3 with a triangular black spot at apical middle; without pruinosity; and tergite 5 with only posterior most region, about 1/9, brownish. This species is morphologically close to Eudexia colombiana (Townsend, 1929) —see fig. 2 of Santis (2021) —but can be readily differentiated from E. mellea comb. nov. by having the upper calypter yellowish (slightly brownish-black in E. colombiana ), fore femur entirely yellowish (mostly yellowish, with portions of ventral regions blackish in E. colombiana ), abdomen with syntergite 1+2 with conspicuous triangular black spot (absent in E. colombiana ) and tergite 5 with only posterior most region, about 1/9, brownish (pale brownish in E. colombiana ).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Hystrichodexia mellea Giglio-Tos, 1893, holotype male (MRSN). A. dorsal habitus. B. head, frontal view. C. lateral habitus. D. labels.