Review of the Eumerus tricolor species group (Diptera: Syrphidae) in Iran, with description of six new species

Abstract

The species of the Eumerus tricolor species group in Iran are reviewed. Six species new to science are described from Iran, i.e., Eumerus atricolorus Gilasian & van Steenis sp. nov., E. brevipilosus Gilasian & van Steenis sp. nov., E. chekabicus Gilasian & van Steenis sp. nov., E. ovoformus Gilasian & van Steenis sp. nov., E. pilosipedes Gilasian & van Steenis sp. nov. and E. vallicolus Gilasian & van Steenis sp. nov. Three species, E. hissaricus Stackelberg, 1949, E. longitarsis Peck, 1979 and E. richteri Stackelberg, 1960, are newly recorded from Iran. Photographs of the species as well as illustrations of the male genitalia of the new species and closely related species are provided. An identification key to the males of the Iranian Eumerus tricolor species group is presented. A row of long posterodorsal setae on the wing vein costa basally is presented and argued as a new diagnostic morphological character for the entire Eumerus tricolor species group.

Two new species of the genus Eumerus Meigen, 1822 (Diptera: Syrphidae) from Central Asia

“…Eumerus Meigen, 1822 is one of the largest genera of Palaearctic Syrphidae (Stackelberg, 1961;Peck, 1988;Speight, 2017). Most of known species are distributed in Central Asia and the Mediterranean, from where a lot of new species were described recently (Grković et al, 2015;Grković et al, 2017;Mutin, 2019;Grković et al, 2019а, b;Barkalov, 2020;Barkalov et al, 2020;Gilasian et al, 2020;Grković et al, 2021). In this paper the descriptions of two new species from Central Asia from the Eumerus tricolor group are given.…”

Integrative taxonomy of the Merodon aberrans (Diptera, Syrphidae) species group: distribution patterns and description of three new species

“…nov., has only been recorded at one locality in Iran. Although there are several publications reporting the diversity of hoverflies in Iran (Dousti & Hayat, 2006;Kazerani et al, 2013;Samin et al, 2016;Mengual et al, 2021) or describing new species there (Vujić et al, 2015;Gilasian et al, 2020), a systematic study of the fauna in Iran has so far not been conducted, so it is to expect that the diversity of hoverflies in general, and the Merodon species in particular, could be higher in this area. It is often the lack of funding or the lack of expertise that constitutes one of the main impediments for this type of study, so employing experts from adjacent countries with a well-developed infrastructure and capacity for conducting systematic surveys could be one of the solutions.…”

Six new species of the genus Eumerus Meigen, 1822 from Iran (Diptera, Syrphidae)

“…nov. and the newly recorded E. argyropus. Most of the examined material for this study was collected from Haftad-Qolleh Protected Area whose relatively high diversity of this genus underlines the need for further explorations to its habitats (Gilasian et al, 2020).…”