364 



UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 224 



posteriorly. The anterior crossvein enters the discal 

 cell at the basal fifth. Second basal cell ends in 3 veins; 

 the anal cell is closed •with a long stalk, the alula large, 

 the ambient vein may be present as far as the middle of 

 the axillary lobe. Medial veins at the end of the discal 

 cell often evanescent. 



Abdomen : The abdomen is short and robust, not quite 

 as wide as the mesonotum, the sides on the basal half 

 parallel. There are seven tergites in the male, the 

 seventh half as long as the sixth or slightly longer. 

 Female with eight tergites, the seventh and eighth of 

 equal length and about half as long as the sixth. Pile 

 of abdomen rather abundant, flat appressed, coarse and 

 opaque but more or less erect laterally on the sides of 

 the first 3 tergites. The first 4 tergites laterally bear 

 2 or 3 bristles which may be continued on to the fifth 

 tergite in some species. Male terminalia rotate and 

 moderately large, with a short, bulblike, ventrally 

 placed epandrium, deeply sulcate and bearing a long, 

 lateral process. The gonopod is well developed later- 

 ally with upper and lower distal process and a short, 

 medial process. There is no indication of a hypandrial 

 plate ; if present it is recessed beneath the seventh ter- 

 gite. Female terminalia of moderate length, the dorsal 

 portion compressed laterally ; the tenth tergite is com- 

 posed of two short, appressed flaps and with a short, 

 protrusive extension ventrally with laterally com- 

 pressed lobes. 



Distribution: Palaearctic: Ctenota armeniaca Para- 

 monov (1930) ; coerulea Becker (1913) ; molitrix Loew 

 (1873) [=™^omwWulp (1899)]. 



I agree with Efflatoun (1934) that Epilamyra Becker 

 is almost certainly the generic equivalent of Ctenota 

 Loew, a genus apparently unknown to Becker, since 

 in his description of Epilamyra he compares it mi- 

 nutely with Lamyra Loew, with no mention whatever 

 of Ctenota Loew. I quote Efflatoun's remarks and 

 also add a brief translation of the more pertinent parts 

 of Becker's description of Epilamyra, which reads very 

 much like a description of the material of Ctenota 

 before me. Efflatoun ( 1934, p. 187) comments : 



I am not in a position now to say whether Epilamyra Becker 

 is synonymous with Ctenota Loew, but I rather doubt that 

 Becker's genus, distinguished merely by the shape of the 

 female ovipositor, will be capable of holding its generic 

 rank. . . . Engel, 1930 says that the genus Epilamyra has 

 remained unknown to him but that on closer examination a 

 male in Hermann's collection proved to be a giant specimen 

 of Ctenota molitrix Loew. 



Becker described the color of the abdominal pile of 

 Epilamyra coerulea as bluish gray, whereas it is white 

 in Ctenota molitrix; thus they may be two distinct 

 species, although probably Efflatoun is correct in his 

 supposition that Becker's species also belongs to 

 Ctenota Loew. 



The following comments are from Becker's descrip- 

 tion of Epilamyra, in translation : 



The present species coerulea, on which I erect the above 

 genus shows us that the genus Lamyra, with which the four 



or five known species have until now been identified, possesses 

 relatives with the general characters of Lamyra, which deviate 

 in some essential points, so that they cannot weU remain within 

 that genus. 



Our species (coerulea) is distinct in two essential charac- 

 ters ; first is the dense, flat appressed pile of the entire insect ; 

 second is the ovipositor which differs from that of Lamyra, 

 which in coerulea has no special characteristic, but protrudes 

 only as two small lamellae from the eighth end segment, and 

 the eighth segment may be considered part of the ovipositor; 

 at the end of a larger, cylindrical ninth segment (Ringes) 

 hangs two lamellae perpendicularly downward, the lowest edge 

 of which has four strong bristles. 



Genus Paractenota Engel 



Fiqukes 234, 631, 1200, 1209, 2138 



Paractenota Engel, Bull. Soc. Ent. Egypte, vol. 9, p. 141, 1925. 

 Type of genus : Paractenota efHatouni Engel, 1925, by 

 original designation. 



Medium size or smaller flies in most respects similar 

 to Ctenota Loew, except that the third antennal seg- 

 ment is elongate and curved upward a short distance on 

 its attenuate subapical region; in consequence it resem- 

 bles certain types of bees and parallels the development 

 of the antenna in Stiphrolamyra comans. Like Ctenota 

 these are robust, hyaline winged flies with greyish to 

 yellowish white, opaque, dense, flat appressed pile pro- 

 viding an over all light colored appearance. Similarly, 

 the face is everywhere covered with matted, long, feebly 

 shining, whitish, bristly pile. There is a minute nod- 

 ular spur near the base of the second submarginal cell. 

 Length 13 mm. 



Head, lateral aspect: The face is short, straight or 

 very gently convex, nearly plane with the eye margin 

 on the upper half ; the lower portion is chiefly conspic- 

 uous through the posterior recession of the eye. The 

 eye is rather long and unusually convex anteriorly. 

 Occiput rather thick, especially ventrally and a little 

 more prominent than in Ctenota; pile and bristles 

 similar. Proboscis exceptionally stout and robust, in- 

 cluding the apex, in every way similar to Ctenota; the 

 dorsal middle fringe of bristles numbers only 5 and 

 they are found just beyond the middle; in every other 

 respect both proboscis and the one-segmented palpus 

 are similar to Ctenota. Antenna attached at the upper 

 fourth of the head, the first segment is perhaps a little 

 longer than in Ctenota; the second segment is certainly 

 shorter and not as high as long and is beadlike. The 

 third segment is not quite twice as long as in Ctenota, 

 thick, strongly convex below, distinctly concave above, 

 occasioned by the apical third being curved upward, 

 particularly the immediate apex. This segment is 2i£ 

 times as long as the combined length of the first two 

 segments; the apex is distinctly truncate, the pit has a 

 concealed spine. The first segment ventrally bears a 

 single very long, blunt, stout, pale bristle, a shorter, 

 more slender bristle and a number of still shorter, 

 coarse, opaque hairs which extend basally along the 

 lateral margins; the dorsal surface in the middle has 



