Sphyracephala europaea
Sphyracephaia europaea is the first known species of the genus and of the family Diopsidae in Europe. (see Blog)
Distribution
Europe: Countries (published), online at Fauna Europaea, Occurrences at GBIF
Following its discovery in 1997 there have been two papers and a number of expeditions by photographers to find the European Jester
Websites and accounts of expeditions
Diptera.info: https://diptera.info/forum/viewthread.p … d_id=24844
a link in there sends you to Nikola Rahme's blog at http://buprestidae.blogspot.co.uk/2010/ … lfold.html which is an account of a 2009 photographic expedition (in Hungarian) Nikola seems to be in the process of changing over to an English version of his "macro adventures" at https://macroadventures.com/about/ where maybe his Sphyracephala europaea trip may be transferred one day (we hope). Nikola is a prize-winning photographer with a Flickr site and there are many more photographs of Sphyracephala europaea for example at https://www.flickr.com/photos/eurythyrea/5126015816 and a stacked frontal view of the head at https://www.flickr.com/photos/eurythyrea/5135595446
Other Hungarian dipterists have gone looking for it, Yordan Kutsarov at http://insecta.pro/taxonomy/334303 and Walter Pfliegler at http://naturephoto-walter.blogspot.co.u … ngarn.html
It's on the Danube and there's mention of records in Bulgaria but I'm unable to trace these.
Papp et Foldvari:
Measurements in mm: body length 3.48 (holotype male), 3.10-3.50 (paratype males),
3.375-4.05 (paratype females); wing length 3.13 (holotype), 2.75-3.20 (paratype males), 3.05-3.65 (paratype females); wing width 1.025, 0.88-1.05, 0.93-1.13; width of head at widest 2.20, 1.903-2.20, 1.703-2.15.
Head bicolorous: frons (postfrons), vertex and occiput (including eyestalks) shining
black though covered with dense grey microtrichia, facial plate, cheeks and genae yel low, ventral surface of eyestalks with a narrow dark band down to peristomium (since ptilinal suture is only horizontal, a separation of face, cheeks and genae is imaginary). Thorax and abdomen shining black but mostly covered with medium long grey microtri chia, which are removable by rubbing; bare patches on ventral half of anepistemum and anterodorsal part of katepisternum and a smaller one on meron. Head extremely wide: widest among the known species of Sphyracephala (Figs 1, 3,
see more below). Eyes small, vertically oval on long but thick eyestalks. Frons (post frons) with two pairs of setae: accepting Peterson's (1987) interpretation, the media] pair is called upper orbital, the lateral pair is outer vertical. Clypeus rather small (Figs 2, 3), shining black, proboscis short, very pale suctorial
surface with numerous pseudotracheae. Antennae very small, yellow with a short (ca. 0.50 mm) bare subapical arista and a rounded 1st flagellomere. Thorax similar to that of Sphyracephala brevicornis (for details see Peterson 1987)
with a pair of strong posterior notopieurais, 1 pair of very long (somewhat posteriorly placed) supra-alar. Thoracic microchaetae white, only 1 (sagittal) row of acrostichals, scattered microchaetae on and posteriorly to postpronotum and on all other more ante rior parts of thorax but only 1 pair of dorsocentral and intra-alar rows. Pleura without any characteristic setae. Scutellum short (0.26 mm on holotype), apical scutellars arise from c. 0.1 mm long apicolateral protuberances, scutellar bristles rather long, 0.62 mm on holotype. Laterotergite with a strong thick spiniform process. Wing long, slender with comparatively large alula, basically almost transparent, veins
brown, ochreous to light brown in some basal sections. Wing apex with a brown spot ex tending near to the end of R (Fig. 1); crossvein area also with a diffuse brown patch; this is distinctly smaller than in Sphyracephala brevicornis: mostly reaching, only the middle of second radial cell, at most reaching R4+S, and usually rather faint on the poste rior lower edge of dm-cu. No darkenings on other areas of wings, in contrast to Sphyra cephala babadjanidesi or 5. brevicornis. Wings covered with evenly spaced, compara tively long trichia, without bare patches. Costa without any break, extending slightly over Mi, costal fringe fine, without any setae, but only hairs including basicosta. Sub- costa complete, running close to Ri and ending at a distal third of the section between humeral vein and R, end. Ri.j less sinuate than in Sphyracephala brevicornis (Fig. 1; cf. Fig. 2 of Peterson 1987), similarly to that of S. babadjanidesi Zaitzev, 1919. Intracrossvein section 0.738, distal section of Mi.; 0.95, i.e., rm more basally placed than in Sphy- racepha/a brcvicornis; t/m-cu 0.235, distal section of CuA| 0.085, i.e., longer than is S. hrevicornis. Cell cup narrow. Ai+CuA; vein ending halfway between base and wing margin. Halteres white or whitish yellow. Legs medium long and slender, no dorsal preapicals. Colour yellow including fore
coxae, but fore femur blackish in apical third and in a patch from the dorsal surface to medio-latero-ventrally in an oblique narrow band; mid femur blackish dorsally in its api cal third and hind femur in its whole apical third. Fore tibiae always black (except for knees), mid and hind tibia all black up to a small yellow knee area, or, this dark colour of mid tibia ventrally and laterally divided by a dirty ochreous stripe. Fore basitarsus all black, dorsal surface of other fore tarsomeres dark grey, at most 5th tarsomere lighter. Fore leg raptorial: fore femur strongly swollen, length/width on the holotype 2.41, simi lar also in females: 2.44. Both sexes with a double row of ventral short black spines from apex to basal third. Fore tibia curved to match the swelling of femur. Fore femur both lateroventraliy and medioventralty with 3 to 4 thin light long setae. Mid tibia with short ventroapica! seta, mind and hind basitarsi each with 2 ventral (medio- and laterov- entral) rows of very small black spines. Abdomen dark shining and flat, only with grey microtomentum and whitish short hairs. Abdomen elongate, segments 1+2 longer than the rest of the abdomen. Male 5th tergite only c. 1/3 the length of the 4th tergite. Preabdominal sternites large, nearly as broad as abdomen in both sexes
Male postabdomen with genitalia comparatively very small (Fig. 4). Syntergosternite 7 + 8 narrow and weakly sclerotized, 7th spiracle just anterior to it. Epandrium semi- globular with medium long setae. Cerci comparatively small, no long seta on cercus (Figs 4, 6). Surstyli (Figs 4, 6, 7) rather caudal, broad also apically, shorter and broader than those of Sphyracephala brevicornis. Hypandrium as in congeners. Aedeagal apo- deme long and robust, aedeagal guide similar, though larger than in Sphyracephala brevicornis, compared to the epandrium (cf. Fig. 5 of Peterson 1987). Gonopods dis tinct, well sclerotized with rather long setae (Fig. 8). Aedeagus bulbous, hidden in the genital complex, parameres large, pointed apically with 9-10 apically directed spines, ejaculatory apodeme long with bulbous sperm pump at base. (We must note here that we think the large pointed paired process lateral to the phallophore to be parameres.) The small plates medial to parameres in the level of the epiphallus must belong to the phallo phore. If so, Peterson (1987) misinterpreted them (cf. his Figs 4-5). There are a pair of thin, very long, apically up curving processes, caudal to phallophore which we name as epiphallus here. Female postabdomen (Figs 9-10) with very short 6th tergite and sternite, postabdo-
men partly retractible into preabdomen. Three spermathecae (Figs 13). Cerci compara tively large, much larger than those of Sphyracephaia brevicornis (Figs 11, 12; cf. Fig. 3 of Peterson 1987)