Lasioptera sharma , a new species of gall midge (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) feeding on Leea indica (Vitaceae) in India

: A new species of gall midge associated with the leaves of Leea indica (Burm.fil.) Merr. (Vitaceae) is described and illustrated. Two species of Lasioptera have been reported from the plant genus Leea so far and the present species is the third one, known to cause galls on the leaves of Leea indica . The type specimens are deposited in the National Zoological Collection, Zoological Survey of India, Western

The genus Lasioptera includes more than 120 species until now, belonging to Lasiopterini, and Lasiopteridi (Gagné & Jaschhof 2021).Up to now, two species of gall midges have been reported from Leea species: Lasioptera manilensis Felt 1918 (Host plant: Leea manillensis) from the Philippines and Asphondylia leeae Felt, 1921 (Host plant: Leea indica) from Indonesia (Felt 1918(Felt , 1921;;Kolesik & Gagné 2020).From India, leaf galls on Leea indica were first reported by Mani (1959) from southern parts of Western Ghats of India but the causative organism was not known.The species was likely not described because adults could not be collected from these galls.Subsequently, Sharma (2003) reared a few adult female gall midges from the leaf galls of L. indica and identified them as Lasioptera sp.The species was not described due to the lack of available male specimens.
The present attempt to rear adult gall midges from the leaf galls of L. indica collected from Mollem, Goa yielded several adult male and female specimens of Lasioptera sp.The specimens were processed and mounted in Canada balsam as per the method described by Kolesik et al. (2015).Holotypes and paratypes were carefully prepared and subsequently deposited in the collection of the Zoological Survey of India, WRC, Pune.In this paper, we formally describe it as a new species Lasioptera sharma and its affinities are discussed.
The members of the genus Lasioptera can be distinguished by several apomorphic features: antennae typically possessing more than 12 antennal flagellomeres; the male 7 th tergite greatly reduced in size compared to 6 th tergite and the gonostylus with a

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J TT strong apical claw.In females, the 8 th tergite is usually longitudinally divided into two discrete sclerites; fused cerci are cylindrical, with a glabrous dorsal, saddleshaped area, usually with prominent hooked setae, and the remainder microtrichose with scattered setae (Yukawa et al. 2019& Gagné 2018).
Larva (Image 2): white, with dark brown spatula; Length 1.4-1.6 mm.Antenna is about twice as long as wide.Cephalic apodemes are about twice as long as a head capsule.Spatula with a long shaft and two pointed anterior teeth separated by v-shaped notch (Figure 4).On each side of the spatula one sternal papilla and four lateral papillae, all asetose.Terminal segment with six papillae (Figure 6).
Gall: Leaf gall (Image 1), sub-cylindrical or subglobose, nearly equally developed on both sides of the leaf blade, though often the hypophyllous part is somewhat larger and narrower than the epiphyllous, yellowish-green or brown, glabrous, solid, hard, indehiscent; larval chambers 4 per gall (Image 1a); more than 10 galls per leaf; exit hole, epi or hypophyllous (Image 4); size 10-14 mm long and 5 mm thick (Mani 2000).
Etymology: The species is named in the honour of Dr. Radheshyam Muralidhar Sharma, an eminent Indian Cecidologist.The specific epithet is used here as a noun in apposition.
Host plant: Leea indica (Burm.fil.)Merr.(Vitaceae) commonly known as Bandicoot Berry, is an evergreen perennial shrub distributed in India, Sri Lanka, throughout South Asia, to northern Australia, Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, and Fiji.This plant has numerous medicinal properties and used for treating various diseases (Chatterjee & Prakashi 2003).
Remarks: Lasioptera sharma sp.nov.differs from all other Indian species in having the following characteristics.Palpus 3-segmented, third female flagellomeres 1.2 times as long as wide, empodia longer than bend in claws, female cercus with 06 large hooked setae on dorsal saddle-shaped area, gonostylus broadened basally, tapering apically, the proportion of aedeagus, cerci, and hypoproct.The present species is closely related to L. manilensis Felt 1918.However L. manilensis can be distinguished from Lasioptera sharma sp.nov., by the structure of the ovipositor, the number of hooked spines the absence of apically broadened setae on the cerci, and the proportion of third female flagellomere.Also, the galls produced by L. manilensis contain only one chamber whereas the galls produced by L. sharma contain 4 chambers.We could not compare this species with the adult male and immature stages of L. manilensis as the latter has been described only based on the adult female.
Lasioptera sharma sp.nov. is the first report of a Lasioptera species from the family Rutaceae from India.Kolesik & Gagné (2020) have mentioned in the monograph that the species of Lasioptera manilensis Felt, 1918 causing leaf galls on Leea manillensis Walp.(Rutaceae) from Philipines.A similar type of gall is also reported from Leea indica but no adults have been described from it (Kolesik & Gagné 2020).