First description of the immature stages of Dasyhelea alula and a redescription of adults from China (Diptera, Ceratopogonidae)

Abstract

The fourth instar larva and pupa of Dasyheleaalula Yu, 2005 are described and illustrated using a Scanning Electron Microscope. The adult male and female of this species are redescribed. Immatures were collected from flooded soil near a pond in Xiaojiawan village, Guizhou province, China and reared in the laboratory. The studied material is deposited in the Insect Collection of Zunyi Medical University.

Spatio-temporal variation of insects with immature phase in the soil of Cerrado Northeast of Brazil

“…The dominance of individuals of the orders Diptera, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, and Hemiptera in the studied soils would not be uncommon, given that these orders are composed of insects with indirect development, which find the soil a favorable substrate for the development of intermediate phases (ROSA et al, 2015;POMPEO et al, 2016). Soil is a substrate rich in refuges and resources necessary for the development of intermediate phases of many animals, mainly insects (DUAN et al 2019;YANG et al, 2020), especially for those with immature phases that develop in the soil.…”

“…Hemimetabolous insects, especially holometabolas, develop immature phases in specific niches and occupy different substrates, such as water, live and decomposing trunks, dead animal carcasses, parasitizing other animals (parasitoids), and often in different soil layers (DUAN et al, 2019;YANG et al, 2020). In the pedological stratum, a wide variety of immature forms of insects can be found, including adult winged forms that have at least one stage of development in the pedological horizons.…”

Morphology of the immature stages of Dasyhelea silvatica Wang, Zhang & Yu with redescriptions of adults (Diptera, Ceratopogonidae)

“…Furthermore, the pupa of D. silvatica is similar to that of Dasyhelea eloyi Díaz & Ronderos, 2013 with small rounded tubercles on cephalothorax surface and the RO with scale-like spines, but the latter has 6-8 lateral pores compared to D. silvatica with 5 lateral pores. Duan et al (2019) described the larvae and pupae of D. alula collected in the same small wetland as D. silvatica. The fourth instar larva of D. silvatica shows similarities with that of D. alula in the rear comb of the hypopharynx with a fringe and two auxiliary sclerites on the lateral arms of the epipharynx.…”

“…The morphological terms and identification methods of larvae, pupae and adults used follow Díaz et al (2013), Borkent (2014) and Yu et al (2005). The abbreviations used in this paper follow Duan et al (2019).…”

“…Biting midges of the genus Dasyhelea Kieffer, 1911 (Diptera, Ceratopogonidae) are a large and complex group of Ceratopogonidae with diverse morphology and biology, and are cosmopolitan in distribution except in Antarctica (Grogan and Wieners 2006). At present there are 192 extant species of Dasyhelea in China (Duan et al 2019;Nie et al 2019), but only eight of these species are known by their immature stages (Yu et al 2005(Yu et al , 2013Duan et al 2019). This may be an indication that China has been under-sampled historically compared to other countries.…”