A NEW SPECIES OF NYCTERIBIIDAE (Diptera Pupipara) 

 FROM ISLANDS IN THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA 



(Plate 16) /^\ 



La 



By I5 



Hugh Scott, Sc.D., F.L.S. ^^\. 



Department of Entomology, British Museum (Natural History) 



The specimens on which the following description is based form 

 part of the collections of the Allan Hancock Pacific Expeditions, under 

 the leadership of Captain G. Allan Hancock, master-owner of the vessel 

 Velero III. They were collected during a voyage made early in 1937, 

 and were submitted to me in August, 1937, by Commander C. M. 

 Dammers, R.N. (retd.), of Riverside, California, through Dr. K. 

 Jordan, F.R.S., of the Zoological Museum, Tring, Hertfordshire. I 

 was then on the point of leaving for an expedition in southwestern 

 Arabia, and could do no more than report, in a letter to Dr. Jordan, 

 that the material belongs to a new species of Basilia. 



The comparatively small number of Nycteribiidae recorded from 

 North, Central, and South America consists of species of Basilia. The 

 genus closely resembles Penicillidia, but is distinguished principally by 

 the eyes, which consist of tw^o facets instead of a single facet. Basilia is 

 represented in the Old World, up till now, by only one European and 

 one Oriental species; but in a paper published early in 1936, entitled 

 "Descriptions and records of Nycteribiidae, with a discussion of the 

 genus Basilia/'* I enumerated thirteen American species. The species 

 described below must now be added, and the present paper may be 

 regarded as supplementary to that cited. Had the latter not appeared 

 shortly before, I should have hesitated to publish an isolated description 

 of the form under review. 



In my paper just cited, I redescribed as well as possible Basilia 

 mexicana [Bigot] and explained that this species is represented only by 

 the unique type, with the bare record "Mexico" and no record of its 

 host. The type is in such condition that B. mexicana cannot be fully 

 described, even in the female sex, but certain of the characters are so 



*Journ. Linn. Soc. London, Zool., xxxix, pp. 479-505, April, 1936; general 

 remarks on Basilia, pp. 495-98. 



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