Peculiar species with yellow gena, broad black facial vitta, scutellum with a medial triangular black macula, pro- and mesotibia yellow (brownish distally and basally) and large male genitalia with surstylus bearing long tufts of pile. An interesting character is the black halter capitulum. Citrogramma hervebazini keys near C. solomonense but they are quite distinct as noted in the identification key.
C. hervebazini has similar male genitalia to the one of C. shirakii, but they have significant morphological differences. C. hervebazini has yellow face with black medial vitta, scutellum with black macula, metafemur black and halter capitulum black. Although male genitalia are similar in shape, hervebazini’s genitalia are larger having broader protuberance of the surstylus and larger superior lobes.
This taxon was designated the type species of the genus Citrogramma by Vockeroth (1969: 95). Curran (1928) based his new species hervebazini on four males but he did not designate a holotype. Wyatt (1991) studied three of these four males, and designated a lectotype and paralectotypes. The fourth male studied by Curran is deposited at the AMNH.
Citrogramma hervebazini (Curran, 1928).
Curran, C.H. (1928) The Syrphidae of the Malay Peninsula. Journal of the Federal Malay States Museums 14, 141-324.
Adapted from original description (Curran 1928).
MALE.
Head: Face orange-yellow or pale orange, with a broad median black vitta which is narrowed towards the oral margin; pile long, fine, pallidly yellow. Frontal triangle shining black, the broad orbits yellow, clothed with yellow pollen, the lunular swelling rather prominent, the dark portion above it, brown pollinose; frontal triangle black pilose. Vertical triangle not twice as long as wide, the ground colour black, thinly covered with brownish pollen; anterior ocellus remote; pile black. Occiput black, black-haired above, the orbits brownish pollinose above, silvery-grey below, where the pile is short, abundant, scale-like, silvery-white. Gena wholly orange, white pilose. Antennae reddish-brown; third joint orange below, oval, one and a quarter as long as wide; arista black, not robust, longer than the antenna.
Thorax: Scutum opaque black, the lateral margin broadly orange, the whole disc, except broad sublateral vittae and posterior fascia, normally grey pollinose, with metallic greyish-green reflection, the pile entirely black except about the humeri; pleura and pectus aeneous, thinly greyish pollinose, with yellow markings as in pendleburyi but rather smaller. Scutellum with a broad basal triangle, reaching almost to the apex, opaque black or brown, the margin orange yellow, more widely so basally, the pile black. Legs rusty yellow; posterior legs, all the tarsi entirely, bases of the anterior four femora and a broad pre apical streak on apical half above, black. Pile black, a little coarse, of the usual length, the anterior four femora more or less pale pilose at the base. Wings tinged with dark grey or fuscous, the third vein curved somewhat forward beyond the middle of the apical cell; stigma luteous brown. Calypter brown, whitish on outer third, with brown fringe except on outer corner. Halteres orange, with brown knob.
Abdomen opaque black, with two interrupted and two entire orange fasciae. Second tergum with a large, subquadrate macula on either side reaching from the base to the apical third, the outer end separated from the lateral margin more widely behind, rarely reaching the side at the anterior angle, the spots separated from each other by a narrow, dark V, which is rarely only linear, narrowly to moderately separated. Third tergum with a fascia lying chiefly before the middle, broadly separated from the anterior margin, its front edge slightly concave towards the outer ends in front, the band about one-third as wide as the length of the segment and sometimes with a shallow projection at each side in the middle. The fascia on the fourth tergum is similar to that on the third, a little more noticeably concave in front and more widened, at the sides, narrower. Fifth tergum with the base narrowly black, the pale fascia narrowly to widely interrupted, narrow in the middle, reaching the posterior angles at the sides. The pile is wholly black except on the sides of the first and basal lateral fourth of the second tergum. Genitalia large, visible from above, the susrtyli broad, reddish, with fringe of long, stiff yellow pile.
unless otherwise stated