BR. J. ENT, NAT. HIST., 13: 2001 



Figs 6-8. Male genitalia of Orfelia bicolor (Macquart). 6, ventral view of gonocoxites, gonostyli 

 and aedeagus; 7, cerci; 8, tergite 9. Scale line 0.2 mm. 



Mycetophilidae 

 Gnoristinae 



The Boletina sciarina Staeger Group 



Zaitzev & Polevoi (1995) described four new species of the B. sciarina Staeger 

 group from Russian Karelia and two of these, B. minuta and B. populina, have now 

 been found to occur in Britain. In the case of B. minuta, I had previously confused it 

 with B. moravica Lundstrom which is an uncommon but widespread species in 

 Britain. All of the species from couplet 16 onwards in the key by Hutson et al. (1980) 

 belong to this group, which have the laterotergite ("pleurotergites" in the key) bare, 

 the costa extended well beyond the tip of vein R 5 , the antennal flagellum all dark and 

 the hind coxa partly or entirely yellow. 



With these additions, there are eleven British species which are reliably separated 

 only on the structure of the male genitalia; all species are small, wing length less than 

 4mm, black bodied with mainly yellow legs. Most species of the group, apart from 

 the very common B. gripha Dziedzicki and the frequent B. trispinosa Edwards, have 

 the coxae entirely yellow but these two additions may have the coxae entirely yellow 

 or slightly darkened basally. 



B. sciarina was the earliest described species of this group (Staeger, 1840), of which 

 B. gripha Dziedzicki is the commonest species and present interpretation follows 

 Dziedzicki (1885), who described several other related species, so it is important to 

 establish its identity. Staeger did not state how many specimens he described it from, 

 but mentioned both sexes and gave a size range and flight period. Edwards (1924) 

 only said of Staeger's types "the series includes some B. sciarina in Dziedzicki's sense 

 and also some B. gripha Dz." I have examined Staeger's material (ZMUC), which 

 comprises 12 males and 3 females, all assumed to be syntypes. One male is labelled 



