Sphyracephala hearseiana ( Westwood, 1845 )

Feijen, Hans R., Feijen, Frida A. A. & Feijen, Cobi, 2025, A revision of the four Afrotropical and Palaearctic Sphyracephala Say (Diptera, Diopsidae) with an illustrated overview of the other five Sphyracephala, ZooKeys 1241, pp. 1-81 : 1-81

Sphyracephala hearseiana ( Westwood, 1845)

Figs 102 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 112 , 125–127 , 128–131 , 132–133 , Tables 2 , 3 , 4

Diopsis hearseiana Westwood, 1845: 99.

Sphryracephala hearseiana (Westwood): Westwood 1848: 37, pl. 18, fig. 3 (error for Sphyracephala hearseiana). Bigot 1892: 216; Sen 1921: 33.

Diopsis hoarseiana Westwood: Macquart 1851: 270, pl. 27, fig. 12.

Zygocephala hearsejana (Wiedemann): Rondani 1875: 443 (error for Zygocephala hearseiana (Westwood )), 1876: 184 (as Zygocephala hearseiana (Wiedemann )).

Sphyracephala hearseiana (Westwood): Loew 1873: 102. Hennig 1941 a: 61; Kumar 1978 a: 63, 1978 b: 201, 1979 a: 95, 1979 b: 143; 70; Feijen et al. 2017: 85; Feijen and Feijen 2019: 40.

Sphyracephala hearseyana (Westwood): Osten Sacken 1882: 235. Van der Wulp 1896: 172; Brunetti 1907: 163; Hennig 1958: 567.

Sphyracephala hearseyiana (Westwood) (also as hearseiyana): Hennig 1941 b: 5.

Sphracephala hearseyana (Westwood): Nayar and Tandon 1962 a: 113. Nayar and Tandon 1962 b: 131, 1963: 1; Singh et al. 1962: 79.

Non Sphyracephala hearseiana : Bezzi 1922: 69. African records are misidentifications for Sphyracephala beccarii (Rondani) .

Type series.

India: the type series appears lost. Westwood states “ captured by Colonel Hearsey in different months and various localities; some on window-panes in June, some on orange and citron leaves in gardens in July, and some in the middle of August on cucumber leaves ”. Westwood (1848) added “ Inhabits Neemuch [Madhya Pradesh] and other parts of India ”.

Distribution.

Some records are known for Islamabad and Punjab in Pakistan. Most records come from the western half of India from Himachal Pradesh to Tamil Nadu. As easternmost Indian locations a few records are found for Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and West Bengal. Datta and Biswas (1985) mention a record for Khushtia, in western Bangladesh. Two records are known from photographs of an S. hearseiana - like fly from Dan Chang and Ban Rai Districts in western Thailand (iNaturalist observations 110414296 and 112536071), but it remains to be seen whether these represent S. hearseiana or an undescribed species.

Illustrations.

Nayar and Tandon (1962 a, 1962 b, 1963) and Singh et al. (1962) provided drawings of wing, head, genitalia, and thorax, while Kumar (1978 a, 1978 b, 1979 a, 1979 b) gave drawings of genitalia, head, and mouthparts. Feijen and Feijen (2019) gave photographs of habitus and head. Here, photographs (Figs 125 – 131 ) of habitus, head, thorax, wing, fore femur, and abdomen are presented and drawings of male genitalia (Figs 132 , 133 ).

Figures

Figure 102. Sphyracephala hearseiana eye span plotted against body length.

Figure 105. Eye span plotted against body length for males of eight Sphyracephala species. A single data point for S. nigrimana is also shown.

Figure 106. Eye span plotted against body length for females of eight Sphyracephala species. A single data point for S. nigrimana is also shown.

Figure 107. Geometric morphometric PCA analysis of Sphyracephala wing venation patterns. Grey dots represent landmarks that were placed with the aid of straight (dotted) lines through other landmarks (white dots). Asterisks indicate wings from paratypes of S. europaea (junior synonym of S. babadjanidesi).

Figure 108. Hierarchical clustering analysis of principal component scores from the PCA in Fig. 107, using the average clustering method. Branch labels indicate the Approximately Unbiased p-value (AU) and Bootstrap Probability (BP). Asterisks indicate wings from paratypes of S. europaea (junior synonym of S. babadjanidesi).

Figure 109. Hierarchical clustering analysis of principal component scores from the PCA in Fig. 107, using the complete clustering method. Branch labels indicate the Approximately Unbiased p-value (AU) and Bootstrap Probability (BP). Asterisks indicate wings from paratypes of S. europaea (junior synonym of S. babadjanidesi).

Figures 110–112. 110 Cladogram of Sphyracephala species groups according to Feijen (1989) 111 preferred maximum likelihood phylogeny of the Sphyracephalinae, based on molecular analysis (Jackson 2019, supplemental figure 1, in slightly adapted form). Numbers at nodes represent Ultrafast Bootstrap supports 112 revised cladogram of Sphyracephala species groups.

Figures 125–127. Sphyracephala hearseiana, ♀, 125, 126 Tamil Nadu, India 127 Madhya Pradesh 125 habitus, dorsal view 126 head, anterior view 127 precoxal bridge of prosternum, ventral view. Scale bars: 1 mm (125); 0.5 mm (126); 0.2 mm (127).

Figures 128–131. Sphyracephala hearseiana, Tamil Nadu, India 128 ♀, wing 129 ♀, fore femur, inner view 130 ♀, fore femur, outer view 131 ♂, abdomen, dorsal view. Scale bars: 0.5 mm (131); 0.2 mm (128–130).

Figures 132, 133. Sphyracephala hearseiana, Rajasthan, India 132 epandrium, cerci, surstyli, posterior view 133 surstylus, outer view. Scale bars: 0.1 mm.