Species Anthrax lepidiotus Roberts, 1928

Anthrax lepidiota Holotype

© Copyright Queensland Museum CC-BY-NC, photo G. Thompson

Anthrax lepidiota Holotype label

© Copyright Queensland Museum CC-BY-NC, photo G. Thompson

Museums

Regional Maps

• Anthrax lepidiota Roberts, F.H.S. 1928. A revision of the Australian Bombyliidae (Diptera). I. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 53: 91-144 [138].

  Type data:

   Holotype QM D3262 ♀, 'Chinchilla Q'land, Nov/24, T.A. Cole'.

Distribution

States

Queensland

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

Qld: Brigalow Belt North (BBN), Brigalow Belt South (BBS), Central Mackay Coast (CMC), Cape York Peninsula (CYP), Desert Uplands (DEU), Darling Riverine Plains (DRP), Einasleigh Uplands (EIU), Mulga Lands (ML), Nandewar (NAN), NSW North Coast (NNC), South Eastern Queensland (SEQ), Wet Tropics (WT)

Ecological Descriptors

Larva: parasitic.

Diagnosis

Eyes separated by 1.83 width of ocellar triangle in male and 33 width of ocellar triangle in female. Frons with short black hairs and light brown scales. Antennal pedicel saucer-shaped, junction between pedicel and flagellum tight, flagellum broad-based, abruptly tapering toward apex, ventral flange extending around pedicel absent (Figs 81, 82). Scutum with brown hairs and light brown scales. Haltere knob brown. Integumental colour of legs brown. Wing venation with spur-vein at base R2+3 present, base of R2+3 usually distal to r-m crossvein; branch spur on R4 absent; CuA2 and A1 fused at wing margin. Wing pattern (Fig. 7) with brown anterobasal region of wing and hyaline apical and posterior regions with isolated brown patches in apex of br and extending through base of Rs, surrounding r-m and bases of R2+3, surrounding base of R4, on mm crossvein and on base of dm-cu. Division between two regions indistinct. Abdominal tergite 1 with erect white hairs and some black hairs admixed on posterior margin; tergites 2–4 with black hairs and dense brown scales; male with tergite 5 with lateral quarter covered in long silver scales. Male genitalia (Figs 75, 76) with swollen basiphallus and epiphallus with single small dorsal apical hook; lateral flanges present at apex of phallus in dorsal view; gonostyli elongate with small rounded basal section in dorsal view and acute apex directed posterolaterally. Female genitalia (Figs 77, 78) with poorly developed sperm pump; proximal end-plate well developed but distal one vestigial; spermathecal bulb elongate oval, neck of spermatheca turning back on itself twice through 180° from bulb to sperm pump. Furca with narrow longitudinal rod and short lateral lobe.

General References

Evenhuis, N.L. 1989. Family Bombyliidae. In, Catalog of the Diptera of the Australasian and Oceanian Regions (Ed.) Evenhuis, N.L. Bishop Museum Press and E.J. Brill : Honolulu and Leiden. [370] (as Anthrax lepidiotus)

Yeates, D.K. & Lambkin, C.L. 1998. Review of the tribe Anthracini (Diptera: Bombyliidae) in Australia: cryptic species diversity and the description of Thraxon, gen. nov. Invertebrate Taxonomy 12(6): 977-1078 [998] (review)

History of changes