PSYCHE 
VOL. XXIX. APRIL 1922 
No. 2 
MICROSANIA, A GENUS OF THE PLATYPEZIDAE 1 
By A. L. Melander, 
Pullman, Wash. 
Microsania Zetterstedt, Isis, 1837, i. 30 [1837]; 
Ins. Lapp. 534, note [1838]; 
Dipt. Sc. i. 333 [1842]; 
Bigot, Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. [6] ix. 123 [1889]; 
Melander, Williston’s 3d. Man. 225 [1908]; 
Lundbeck, Dipt. Dan. Emp. iii. 18 [1910]; 
Wahlgren, Ent. Tidskr. xxxi. 43, 47 [1910] 
Microcyrta Bigot. 
Bigot, Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. [3] v. 557, 564 [1857]; Coquillett, Proc. 
Ent. Soc. Wash. v. 253 [1903]; 
Pachypeza Lioy, not Serville, Coleoptera, 1835; Lioy, Atti. Inst. Veneto 
[31 ix. 723 [1863]; Coquillett, Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash. v. 255 [1903]. 
Platytelma Rondani. 
Rondani, Dipt. Ital. Prodr. i. 138 [1856]; Coquillett, Proc. Ent. 
Soc. Wash. v. 256, 261 [1903], 
Small, hunchbacked species with open venation and inflexed 
hypopygium. Head rather globular, eyes bare, of the male 
entirely contiguous above the antennae, the facets of the upper 
two-thirds large, of the female broadly separated, the facets 
uniform, the front of the female with one pair of vertical and two 
pairs of orbital bristles, the lower pair converging, and a pair of 
diverging supraantennal interfrontal bristles; face of the male 
deeply concave, its sides divergent below, of the female strongly 
convex below, almost nasiform; proboscis fleshy, short, not 
extending beyond the broad oral cavity, palpi very wide, disci- 
form and appressed against the cheeks; occipital hairs sparse 
but stiff; antennae short, basal joints small, the third joint 
orbicular, with a terminal tapering arista at whose base aie 
two minute segments. Chaetotaxy of the thorax as follows, 
one humeral, two or more posthumeral, foui to six notopleuial 
point contribution from the Bussey Institution of Harvard University No. ISO, and the 
Zoology Laboratory of the State College of Washington. 
