Ropalomera tibialis Walker 1852

Ropalomera tibialis Walker, 1852 (Fig. 1D, E, G)

Ropalomera tibialis Walker, 1852: 375.

Rhopalomera [sic] tibialis – Williston 1895 a: 184.

Rhopalomera [sic] walkeri Prado, 1966: 215, 243, 245.

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — French Guiana. Mitaraka, La Planète Revisitée Guyane 2015, MNHN-PNI, APA 973-1, different sites near base camp and along trails, tropical moist forest (different sites), 10.III.2015, PVP, leg. Julien Touroult & Eddy Poirier (FR-GU/ Mitaraka /2015) – sample code: MITARAKA /222 (sorted by Marc Pollet, 2015), 1 ♂, MNHN.

DISTRIBUTION. — French Guiana (first record), Brazil (Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Maranhão, Pará, Rondônia), Bolivia.

DIAGNOSIS. — Frons (Fig. 1E) with fine yellow pilosity, yellow, darkened around ocellar triangle and vertex; face dark brown; scutum brown with acrostichal and dorsocentral stripes of pale yellow or silvery pruinosity; pleura with stripe of silvery pruinosity extended from proepisternum to metathoraxic spiracle; wing slightly infuscated with darkened areas along the veins, especially R 2 + 3, R 4 + 5, r-m and M 1; fore femur with silvery pruinosity, posterior surface and apical half of posteroventral surface shiny, lacking pruinosity, proximal half of posteroventral surface bare; mid femur with 2-3 preapical seta and 1 dorsoapical, strong and curved spine-like setae; mid tibia ventrally with apical spine-like seta; abdomen with bluish reflections; postgonites bilobate; phallus with spinelike apical projections; dorsal process of hypandrial arms with very long lateral branches.

COMMENTS

Ropalomera tibialis is similar to R. titillator Steyskal, 1967. Both species bear a pleural region with a stripe of silvery pruinosity extending from anepisternum to anepimerum. Ropalomera tibialis can be distinguished from the latter species by the presence of a brown scutum and black setae on the anterior surface of the mid femur and the apex of the mid tibia, whereas the scutum of R. titillator is reddish brown and the setae on the anterior surface of the mid femur and the apex of the mid tibia are rather red or dark brown. Both species were revised by Kirst & Ale-Rocha (2012).