
REVISIONARY CLASSIFICATION OF RUTILIINI 99 
of the tergite. T5 without trace of median depression, with a transverse row of strong erect 
discal setae standing near the centre of the tergite. Measurements. Body length 14:7 mm, 
wing length 12-6 mm [holotype only]. 
3d. Unknown. 
MATERIAL EXAMINED 
Holotype 9, NEw GuINnEA: Murmur Pass, 8600 ft, x.1961 (W. W. Brandt). In 
British Museum (Natural History), London. 
DIsTRIBUTION. Known only from the holotype from highland New Guinea. 
AFFINITIES. This is the first species of Amphibolia to be discovered in New 
Guinea. Although only a single specimen is so far known it has been considered 
desirable to describe the new species because its provenance is unexpected and 
because it shows very distinctive features which make it intermediate between two 
groupings of Amphibolia s.str. species present in the mainland Australian fauna. 
Paramonov (1968 : 356) found that the Australian species fell into two moderately 
distinct groups, one with mainly yellow head and with black abdominal spots and 
the other with blackish head and no black abdominal spots, and he used this distinc- 
tion for the first cut in his key to the Australian species. The new species A. (A.) 
_ papuana here described has the black head colour of the second of Paramonov’s 
groups but has bold black abdominal spots on T3 like the first group, and seems on 
this account to occupy a rather intermediate position; on total facies, however, it 
appears most closely allied to A. (A.) albocincta (Malloch), a species with dark head 
and no black spots from New South Wales. From a zoogeographical viewpoint this 
possibility is of interest because it provides another instance of a curious fact of 
Tachinid distribution that is becoming more and more evident—that there are 
elements in the Tachinid fauna of the New Guinea highlands that are quite disjunct 
from the rest of the Papuan fauna but are beyond doubt extremely closely allied to 
similar or almost identical forms in the mountainous parts of New South Wales 
(with, apparently, a very wide gap in distribution in Queensland). 
The holotype of papuana sp. n. differs from typical Amphibolia specimens by 
seeming to lack definite discal setae on the intermediate abdominal tergites, but 
careful examination shows the presence of a large pore anteromedially on T3, 
confirming that abdominal discals can be present in this species. The probability 
is that specimens are variable in the development of discal setae in papwana, as in 
other species of Amphibolia, and it is to be expected that specimens obtained in 
future will not necessarily conform completely with the holotype in this detail of the 
_ abdominal chaetotaxy. 
_ Asa whole the strength and development of the chaetotaxy in papuana sp.n. is 
closely similar to that of A. (A.) ignorata Paramonov, in both species the abdominal 
_ and leg chaetotaxy in particular being very weak. It is of interest to note also the 
_ close resemblance in the distribution of the pale pollinose overlay of the abdomen in 
_ these two species; the abdominal pattern is essentially extremely similar in papuana 
and ignorata, differing only in that ignorata has a pair of minute median black spots 
' in addition in the centre of the pale pollinose fascia of T4, and the median black spot 
of T3 in ignorata is clearly composed of two partially fused spots. But ignorata has 
the head bright yellow and the antennae orange and on this feature alone is at once 
