Cheilosia ( Cheilosia ) bracusi Vujić & Claussen, 1994

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 : 34-35

Cheilosia ( Cheilosia) bracusi Vujić & Claussen, 1994

Fig. 15

Cheilosia bracusi Vujić & Claussen, 1994: 137 .

Cheilosia bracusi – Mengual et al. 2020: 15.

Differential diagnosis

Cheilosia bracusi has a pilose eye, bare face, bicoloured legs, posterior margin of scutellum with setae (although often short and yellow in the female) and sterna shiny. Many species of Cheilosia have this combination of characters, but it can be distinguished from most of them by the eye being entirely pilose (ventral part bare or nearly so in C. bergenstammi ), arista black (orange in C. chloris (Meigen, 1823)) and body size at least 8 mm (in C. vernalis at most 8 mm). For differences with very similar extralimital C. melanura Becker, 1894 , see Vujić & Claussen (1994). Within the Caucasus, it can be confused mainly with C. confusa sp. nov. A general distinct characteristic is the colour of the pale body pile, rufous in C. bracusi , whitish or yellow in C. confusa . Moreover, the metatibia in C. bracusi has a narrow or incomplete black ring covering less than half of metatibia ( Fig. 15A) (with broad black ring covering ca half of tibia in C. confusa ) and mesotarsus with basal two or three tarsomeres yellow (tarsi dorsally black in C. confusa ). The male genitalia are figured in Vujić & Claussen (1994).

Material examined

Collected in 2018, 2019 and 2023; see Mengual et al. (2020) for detailed records from 2018.

Genetics

DNA barcodes of C. bracusi are placed into a cluster without high support (BS <90%), grouped with some barcodes of C. melanura .

Biology

During our expeditions, collected between 6 May and 19 June at an altitude between 1090 and 2327 m a.s.l. Visits both low flowers ( Ranunculus sp. ) as flowering shrubs and trees ( Acer velutinum , Salix sp. , Sorbus sp. ) in or at the edge of meadows, including dry slopes.

Distribution

Southern and Central Europe, Balkan Peninsula, and Caucasus. Within the Caucasus only reported from Georgia.