Cabamofa orientalis sp. nov. from Thailand, congeneric with C. mira Jaschhof from Costa Rica (Diptera: Bibionomorpha: Sciaroidea incertae sedis)

Publication Type:Journal Article
Year of Publication:2019
Authors:Jaschhof, M., Ševčík J.
Journal:Zootaxa
Volume: 4576
Issue:2
Pagination:392–394
Abstract:

The genus Cabamofa, previously containing only C. mira from Costa Rica (Jaschhof 2005), is shown here to have a second species in Thailand, which is described and named C. orientalis sp. nov. The new species is known from a single male collected by the TIGER Project (Thailand Inventory Group for Entomological Research), a mass-sampling program to  inventory  insect  diversity  in  Southeast  Asia  (Plant  et  al.  2011;  http://sharkeylab.org/tiger,  accessed  14  December  2018). As the circumstances of finding indicate, C. orientalis is a decidedly rare species, an attribute applying to perhaps one third of all tropical arthropods (Lim et al. 2012) and most Sciaroidea incertae sedis (Jaschhof 2017), including the Costa Rican C. mira. The latter species was originally described from two females, which were Malaise trapped in 2003 in lowland rain forest (Jaschhof 2005), while a conspecific male, a museum specimen collected in 1922 in an unknown habitat, was detected and described subsequently (Amorim & Rindal 2007). Cabamofa is one of nearly 20 sciaroid genera  whose  family  affiliation  has  not  yet  been  resolved  (Jaschhof  2017),  but  there  is  morphological  evidence  suggesting its close affinity to other Sciaroidea incertae sedis, such as Rogambara Jaschhof, 2005, Ohakunea Tonnoir & Edwards,  1927,  and  Colonomyia  Colless,  1963.  These  four  genera  together  form  the  Ohakunea  group  of  Jaschhof  (2005), or the Ohakuneinae (as a subfamily of the broadly conceived family Rangomaramidae) of Amorim & Rindal (2007). Recent molecular work (Ševčík et al. 2016, Kaspřák et al. 2019) suggests a more distant phylogenetic position of Ohakunea to other Sciaroidea incertae sedis. The obvious conflict here between morphological and molecular evidence is stimulating fresh interest in the “incertae sedis issue”, as proven by the present contribution. The morphology of C. orientalis  provides  no  new  clues  as  to  the  systematic  position  of  Cabamofa,  or  the  Ohakunea  group,  but  reveals  characters that were previously not known to occur in Cabamofa. The delimitation of this genus is briefly reviewed below. Our finding of C. orientalis extends the geographic distribution of Cabamofa from the New World to the Old World (Oriental) tropics, which consorts with the disjunct (Neotropical-Australasian) areas found in both Colonomyia and Ohakunea. Morphological terminology used here is in accordance with that by Cumming & Wood (2017).

URL:https://biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/issue/view/zootaxa.4576.2https://biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.4576.2.12
DOI:10.11646/zootaxa.4576.210.11646/zootaxa.4576.2.12
Taxonomy checked: 
Yes
TDWG distribution: 
Yes
Specimens imported: 
No
Tue, 2019-04-02 21:49 -- vblago
Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith