Cheilosia ( Cheilosia ) melanopa ( Zetterstedt, 1843 )

Bot, Sander, Mengual, Ximo, Meutter, Frank Van de & Skevington, Jeffrey H., 2025, Review of the genus Cheilosia Meigen, 1822 (Diptera: Syrphidae) from the Caucasus, with the description of 14 new species, European Journal of Taxonomy 1023, pp. 1-181 : 92-93

Cheilosia ( Cheilosia) melanopa ( Zetterstedt, 1843)

Fig. 46

Eristalis melanopa Zetterstedt, 1843: 807 .

Cheilosia melanopa – Barkalov 1993: 714. — Mengual et al. 2020: 18 (part, see Remarks in C. redi ).

Differential diagnosis

Given the pilose face and eye, almost entirely black legs and in the male a sickle-shaped dorsal lobe of the postgonite, C. melanopa is easily confused with C. borjomi sp. nov., C. lasiopa , C. redi and C. variabilis (see Francuski et al. 2009 for drawings of the male genitalia of these species). It differs from C. lasiopa by longer setae on posterior margin of scutellum and the male by shorter sickle-shaped dorsal lobe of postgonite. Similar to C. borjomi and C. variabilis but on average with smaller body size ( 8–10 mm vs 10–12 mm), stockier abdomen, tibiae usually narrowly yellow at base (usually all black in C. borjomi and C. variabilis ), and in the male by the absence of black setae on ventral part of metafemur (present in males C. borjomi and C. variabilis ). Females of C. melanopa have the posterior anepisternum pruinose (shiny in those of C. variabilis ) and scutum with short erect predominantly yellow pile and with longer erect sparse black pile intermixed (with short semi-adpressed pile, this pile usually predominantly black and with longer erect sparse black pile intermixed in C. borjomi ). Very similar to C. redi ; see Differential diagnosis of that species.

Material examined

Collected in 2018, 2019 and 2021; see Mengual et al. (2020) for detailed records from 2018.

Genetics

COI sequences of C. melanopa from the Caucasus and other Palaearctic locations group together in our NJ tree with high support (BS = 98.1%).

Biology

During our expeditions, collected between 10 June and 31 July at an altitude on alpine meadows between 1900 and 2887 m a.s.l.

Distribution

Holarctic, including the Caucasus ( Armenia, Georgia, Northern Caucasus).