A new species of frog-biting midge from Papua New Guinea with a key to the described Corethrellidae of the Australopapuan region (Diptera, Corethrellidae, Corethrella)

Abstract

Corethrellaoppositophila Kvifte & Bernal, sp. n. is described based on one male and six female specimens collected at 2200 m a.s.l. on Mount Wilhelm, Papua New Guinea. The species is the fourth species of frog-biting midge described from this country and appears similar to Corethrellasolomonis Belkin based on pigmentation of legs and abdominal tergites. It differs from C.solomonis, however, in the shape of female flagellomeres I–III, and in the thorax which has a dark brown vertical stripe. The new species is named for its sexually dimorphic flagellomeres, which are short and squat in the female and elongate in the male. These differences in morphological characters are discussed in light of the likely sexual differences in functional uses of the antennae, as males use them for mating only whereas females use them both for mating and prey location. An emended key is presented to the described Australopapuan species of Corethrellidae.

More than meets the eye: decrypting diversity reveals hidden interaction specificity between frogs and frog‐biting midges

“…described worldwide (Amaral et al ., 2019), of which 35 (+5 undescribed) were reported from Costa Rica (Borkent, 2014). An increasing interest in frog‐biting midge research over the last years has led to novel species descriptions (Amaral & Pinho, 2015; Caldart et al ., 2016; Kvifte & Bernal, 2018), indicating that substantial diversity remains to be uncovered. However, so far species delimitation for Corethrella were exclusively based on morphological traits (but see Miller et al ., 1997).…”

Description of three new species of frog–biting midges (Diptera: Corethrellidae) from the Central Brazilian Amazon

“…To date, the genus Corethrella includes 115 extant species and 10 extinct species. These insects have a semi cosmopolitan distribution with vast majority of extant species restricted to the tropics and subtropics (Kvifte & Bernal 2018;Amaral et al 2019;Baranov et al 2019). The Neotropical region possesses the highest richness of species of Corethrella with 77 registered species (Amaral 2018;Amaral et al 2019), of which 28 species are from the Amazon basin (Borkent 2014;Amaral et al 2019).…”