FRUIT FLIES OF GENUS TOMOPLAGIA — ^ACZEL 323 



tamento de Zoologia in Sao Paulo, Brazil, submitted for study all the 

 material in the collection there; Dr. Everard E. Blanchard, chief 

 entomologist of the Instituto de Sanidad Vegetal in Buenos Aires, 

 loaned all his material, including his undescribed new species which 

 the author describes under the manuscript names applied by him; 

 Dr. Gregorio Willinier, subrector of the Colegio Maximo de San Jose, 

 San Miguel, Province of Buenos Aires, lent all the material available; 

 Professor A. da Costa Lima (Distrito Federal, Brazil) contributed 

 the paratypes of his rudolphi for study and kindly supplied information 

 on the types of various Brazilian species; Mr. Jean L. Laffoon, ento- 

 mologist of Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, was also very helpful. 

 The writer expresses his deep gratitude to aU. 



The line drawings were made by the writer; 5X or lOX oculars 

 and the 8X objective of a Zeiss binocular microscope, and camera 

 lucida were used, and the drawings reduced to half size. The original 

 photographs of the wings represent enlargements of 12 to 32 diameters 

 and aU were photographed by Mr. V. Brennan of the Fundacion 

 Miguel LiUo. 



Genus Tomoplagia Coquillett 



This American genus is distributed from the United States to Chile 

 and Argentina, but attains its greatest development in South and 

 Central America within the tropics of the Neotropical region. As far 

 as is known, only two species occur in the United States: obliqua 

 (Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, New 

 Mexico, California) and cressoni (Arizona and California). Benjamin 

 (1934) was doubtful about the records of obliqua from the West Indies 

 and Mexico, but they seem very reasonable to the writer. Much 

 remains to be learned concerning the geographic distribution of the 

 various species. 



The following outstanding characters readily distinguish this genus 

 from aU known genera of Trypetini of the subfamily Trypetinae: Body 

 and bristles yellow; oral margin of concave mesofacial plate raised 

 and more or less prominent; basic wing pattern usually consisting of 

 four coherent oblique bands, yellow with narrow brown distal border; 

 inner and outer cross-veins oblique and closely placed, both included 

 in the median band of wing pattern; fourth longitudinal vein (Mi) 

 excurved near base of second posterior cell (Cp2); some black spots 

 present on thorax and abdomen; third longitudinal vein (Ri+5) 

 spinulose from base to apical yellow band on superior, and from base 

 to anterior cross-vein on inferior surface. 



Additional morphological characters of the genus are as follows: 



Length of body of the species examined (females without ovipositor 

 sheath) 2.8 to 7.7 mm.; length of thorax (including scutellum) 1.3 to 



