Herina flavoscutellata Kameneva & Korneyev 2022, comb. n.

Cephalia flavoscutellata Becker, 1900 (fig. 3) Valid name. Herina flavoscutellata (Becker, 1900), comb. n. (Ulidiidae). Cephalia flavoscutellata Becker, 1900: 385; Steyskal, 1965: 643; Soós, 1984: 57; Wallace, 2021: 9, 13 (fig. 4C), 54. Myrmecomya flavoscutellata: Becker, 1905: 105. Original description: “Diese Gattung wird von Loew zu den Ortaliden gerechnet; s. Loew. North American Diptera I. 43. Die vorliegende Art ist weder mit rufipes Mg., nigripes Mg. noch mit quadripunctata Gimmerth. identisch. Auch Cephalia myrmecoides Lw. Wien. Ent. Monatschr. 1860. 8. 3. 9 aus Nord-Amerika ist eine andere Art, deren Schwinger und Schildchen schwarz sind, bei der auch die Flügel an der Wurzel eine schwarze Zeichnung haben. Verglichen sind auch noch folgende Arten: Wiedem. Aussereurop. Zweifl. II. 469. Cephalia femoralis, fascipennis u. marginata aus Brasilien. Bob. Desvoidy Myod. 721. 723. Polystodes ichneumoneus. Myrmecomyia formicaria, micropezoidea. Weibchen. Thorax glänzend schwarz, in der Gegend der Schulterbeulen dunkel rostroth. Schildchen gelb mit 2 Borsten. Kopf rostroth; Stirn verdunkelt, auf der Mitte eine etwas flache Längsrinne, die von dunkler Bestäubung etwas matt ist. Die Fühler haben ein braun bestäubtes drittes Fühlerglied, die beiden ersten Glieder sind gelb; Borste ziemlich lang, nackt. Das gewölbte Untergesicht glänzend rothbraun mit schmalen etwas weiss bereiften Wangen. Hinterrücken und Hinterleib glänzend schwarz, die zerstreute kurze schwarze Behaarung ist kaum zu erkennen; Legeröhre glänzend schwarz. Schwinger gelb. Beine schwarz mit rothen Hüftgelenken, auch die äusserste Wurzel und Spitze der Schenkel und die Kniee sind rostgelb. Die Flügel haben an der Spitze einen grossen schwarzbraunen Flecken; er beginnt an der Spitze der Randzelle, deren äusserste Ecke auch noch braungefärbt ist und verläuft allmälig verblassend hinter der Mündung der vierten Längsader; innere Begrenzung buchtig. 4½ mm. lang.” [English translation: This genus is assigned by Loew to the ortalids; sensu Loew, North American Diptera I: 43. The present species is not identical either to rufipes Mg., nigripes Mg. or to quadripunctata Gimmerth. Also Cephalia myrmecoides Lw. 1860 […] from North America is another species, haltere and scutellum of which are black, and wing also having black markings at the base. […] Female. Thorax shiny black, dark rust-red in the area of humeral lobes. Scutellum yellow with 2 setae. Head rusty red. Frons darkened, in the middle with somewhat shallow longitudinal groove, which is somewhat dull from dark pollination. Antennae with brown microtrichose third segment, the first two segments yellow. Arista rather long, bare. The arched lower face is shiny red-brown with narrow cheeks that are dusted with white. Postnotum and abdomen shiny black, short black hairs scattered about barely visible; Oviscape shining black. Halter yellow. Legs black with red hip joints, also the extremities of the roots and tips of the thighs and the knees are rusty yellow. Wing with large black-brown spot at the tip; it begins at the tip of the marginal cell, the outermost corner of which is also coloured brown, and runs gradually fading behind the apex of the fourth longitudinal vein; inner boundary indented. 4.5 mm. long] Remarks: This enigmatic species was previously known only from its original description, without any illustrations. Through the kindness of Jere Kahanpää and Pekka Malinen (ZMH) the type was photographed at our request, which made it possible to clarify its taxonomic position. This species is much smaller than Cephalia rufipes (which has wing length about 7–8 mm, whereas in H. flavoscutellata it is about 4.5–4.7 mm) and does not possess any synapomorphies of the Cephalia + Myrmecothea + Myiomyrmica + Tritoxa lineage (see discussion above) such as long antennae, dorsally bulging occiput, absent proepisternal seta, or thorax low anteriorly and very high posteriorly, which are unique for Cephalia + Myrmecothea + Myiomyrmica. It therefore does not meet the diagnoses of those lineages and certainly does not belong to Cephalia. It shares its oval, densely microtrichose flagellomere 1, head shape, wing venation and pattern with the species of Seioptera Kirby and Pseudoseioptera Hennig of the Seiopterini but has a single katepisternal seta instead of two (the synapomorphy of Seiopterini) and has a short pterostigma, and thus does not belong to that tribe. It also strongly resembles Proteseia steyskali Hernández & Kameneva, 1998 (provisionally assigned to Cephaliini) because of these characters but differs by the short pterostigma and vein R 1 setulose only at apical part (pterostigma long and vein R 1 entirely setulose in Proteseia), as well as in the shorter face and narrower palp having no subtriangular appearance. It strongly resembles species of the genus Herina Robineau-Desvoidy (Otitini), to which it is here transferred, in its bulky thorax which is wide and subequally high in its anterior and posterior parts. It is similar to Herina oscillans (Meigen, 1826) in the oval flagellomere 1, rather high clypeus, widened palp and wing pattern restricted to the darkened basicostal and costal cells and pterostigma, as well as having a dark apical spot and crossveins without dark spots. Herina oscillans occurs from England, Morocco and southern Sweden to Hungary and Cyprus, mainly in mountain meadows, and differs in being a much smaller species (wing length 2.7–3.5 mm) with a reddish frons (dark brown in H. flavoscutellata), black scutellum (brownish yellow in H. flavoscutellata), and less expressed wing pattern. Herina is a large and hyperdiverse, subcosmopolitan genus of the Otitini occurring throughout Asia (mostly in the mountains), Europe, and North America down to Mesoamerica (Morgulis et al., 2013). It includes all those species of the Otitini which do not possess the characters of Dorycera, Hiatus, Otites, Melieria and Ceroxys, and is apparently non-monophyletic but not readily separable into smaller genera. Kameneva (see: Morgulis et al. 2013) established several groups of species, however, and among these was the oscillans group which included Herina oscillans, H. parva (Loew, 1864), H. pseudoluctuosa Hennig, 1939, H. merzi Kameneva, 2007 and H. lazi Kameneva & Korneyev, 2012. Further study of the genital structures of H. flavoscutellata, including the structure of the male surstylus and female spermatheca, is necessary to decide whether it also belongs to this species group. The records from North America (Canada: N.W.T.) as C. flavoscutellata (see: Steyskal, 1965; Wallace, 2021: USNM 1396546) are very probably misidentified; detailed comparison of the morphological characters and COI barcoding mtDNA sequences of specimens from North America and Siberia is needed to clarify if they belong to different taxa.

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