tibialis haemorrhous Meigen, 1822:182

Paragini, with the single genus Paragus, is a compact and distinctive group occurring in all continents other than South America and Antarctica. Paragus species are small, slender to moderately robust, with thorax black or with apex of scutellum pale, and abdomen usually extensively red-orange to entirely black. Paragus has postpronotum bare, antenna short, anterior anepisternum bare, abdomen parallel-side, face yellow in background colour, metaepisternum bare, scutum black laterally, at most with a poorly defined yellow polinose vitta, and metasternum bare.

The subgenus Pandasyopthalmus sensu Vujic et al. (2008) has eye uniformly pilose; scutum shining, finely punctured, without pollinose submedial vittae; scutellum with rounded posterior margin, without conspicuous teeth or bristles; abdomen elongate, usually narrowed between terga 2 and 3; terga 1–2 fused; terga 3–5 usually not fused, connection between terga 2 and 3 movable; connections between terga 3–5 immovable; male genitalia: minis small, lateral arms of minis long; aedeagus ‘amphora-like’.

Pandasyopthalmus is divided in two species groups: jozanus and tibialis groups. P. haemorrhous belongs to the tibialis group, whose species have face with distinct facial tubercle and with dark facial stripe in females; basoflagellomere about three times as long as pedicel; spurious vein extending beyond or to the meeting point of vein M1 with vein DM; male genitalia: ejaculatory apodeme narrow and distally with large umbrella-like fringe; lateral lobe of aedeagus reduced; postgonite much more protruded anteriorly than aedeagus; aedeagal apodeme with well-developed lateral arms; aedeagus with small, arm-like lateral projections; hypandrium usually with characteristic lateral projections.

Paragus (Pandasyopthalmus) haemorrhous Meigen, 1822.

Meigen, J.W. (1822) Systematische Beschreibung der bekannten europaischen zweiflugeligen Insekten. Dritter Theil. Schulz-Wundermann, Hamm. x + 416 pp., pls. 22-32. [1822.09.??]

New description:

MALE.

Head: Face slightly produced forward ventrally, yellow with medial black vitta reaching black area dorsad to mouth margin, yellow pilose; gena black; frontal triangle yellow, yellow pilose; vertical triangle black, black pilose; antenna dark brown, basoflagellomere elongate, arista submedial; dichoptic, eyes separated by facet width, eye pilose; occiput black, silver pollinose, withish-yellow pilose.

Thorax: Scutum and scutellum shiny black, punctuate, yellow pilose; subscutellar fringe complete. Pleuron black, with long white pile; metasternum bare. Wing: Wing membrane hyaline, microtrichose with broad bare areas basally. Alula broad, bare basally with few microtrichia apically. Legs: Entirely yellow except coxae and trochanter black; profemur black on basal 1/3, mesofemur black on basal 1/2 and metafemur black except apical 1/4 yellow.

Abdomen: elongate, punctuate; usually narrowed between terga 2 and 3; terga 1–2 fused; terga 3–5 usually not fused, connection between terga 2 and 3 movable; connections between terga 3–5 immovable. Terga 1-2 black, terga 3-7 orange.

Synonyms:

Paragus substitutus Loew, 1858: 376.

Paragus haemorrhous Meigen, 1822: 182.

Paragus dimidiatus Loew, 1863: 308.

Paragus auricaudatus Bigot, 1884: 540.

Paragus coreanus Shiraki, 1930: 250.

Paragus sigillatus Curtis, 1836: 593.

Paragus trianguliferus Zetterstedt, 1838: 3.

Paragus ogasawarae Matsumura, 1916: 13.

Paragus pallipes Matsumura, 1916: 11.

Paragus tamagawanus Matsumura, 1916: 9.

GenBank accession number for this species are: protein-coding COI gene (AY275521; AY174471; AY174470; AY174469; AY174466), ITS2 plus rRNA 2S gene (AY217737; AY217736; AY217730), rRNA 28S gene (AY476868; AY476866) and rRNA 18S gene (EU409259).

Paragus is the only genus of the tribe Paragini and its phylogenetic position is uncertain. Dusek and
Laska (1967) did not comment on the sister group of Paragus but mentioned that the genera Didea and Paragus share some characters of the adult morphology and male genitalia and they placed Paragini as one of the first branches of Syrphinae, commonly called basal clades. Shatalkin (1975) said that Paragini was a tribe aberrant in relation to all other tribes of the subfamily based on characters of the male genitalia. Rotheray and Gilbert (1989) using larval characters, resolved the genus as sister group of the tribe Pipizini. In 1999, Rotheray and Gilbert reported Paragus as sister group of the clade Eupeodes + Scaeva + Ischiodon.

Ståhls et al. (2003) using morphological and molecular characters resolved Paragus as sister group of the genera Chrysotoxum and Syrphus. Hippa and Ståhls (2005), based only on adult morphological cahracters, found a similar conclusion: Paragus as sister group of Chrysotoxum, Syrphus, Toxomerus and Sphaerophoria. Mengual et al. (2008) using only molecules, resolved Paragini as sister group of Allobaccha, a position never suggested before

Although there are recent studies about the intrageneric classification of Paragus (Kassebeer, 1999a,b, 2001; Rojo et al., 2006; Vujic et al., 2008), the placement of this tribe in the subfamily Syrphinae is unresolved as previous results disagree. Currently there are four subgenera based on the study by Vujic et al. (2008): Paragus s. str., Serratoparagus, Afroparagus and Pandasyopthalmus (the latest with two species groups, tibialis and jozanus groups).

Flowers visited by adults: umbellifers; Calluna, Jasione montana, Matricaria, Origanum, Polygonum, Potentilla anserina, P. erecta, P. fruticosa, Solidago, Stellaria (Speight 2010).

Larvae of P. haemorrhous are aphid predators on various herbaceous plants, including some crops (at least in southern Europe), such as Beta, Cynara and Vicia species (Rojo and Marcos-Garcia, 1998).

The flight period for European specimens of P. haemorrhous is from May to September, with peaks in June and August (plus March/April and October in southern Europe) (Speight 2010).

Widespread species known from northern Norway south to Iberia and the Mediterranean (including Sicily and Malta); North of Africa, Israel and Turkey; also in the Afrotropical region; from Ireland eastwards through central and southern Europe (Italy, the former Yugoslavia) into European parts of Russia; in North America from the Yukon south to Costa Rica (Speight 2010).

Adults flies low through ground vegetation, with an erratic, darting, weaving flight; males hover close to the ground or close to the foliage of low-growing plants and patrol stands of low-growing plants in flower; settles on foliage or the ground (Speight 2010).

Adults' preferred environment: forest/open ground/wetland; unimproved grassland (calcareous and noncalcareous), heathland, including montane/subalpine heath, garrigue, dune grassland, open areas and pathsides in forest up to the Larix/Pinus uncinata zone, fen meadow (Speight 2010).

Larva of P. haemorrhous was described and figured by Goeldlin (1974), from a larva collected on Knautia. The larva described by Dixon (1960) as that of P. tibialis (Fall.) is the larva of P. haemorrhous (Speight 2010).

Larva (from Dixon 1960 as P. tibialis).

Length 6-7 mm., width 22.2 mm., height 1.5 mm.; uniform pearly-white or light yellowish-brown; dark heart line usually prominent; dark line on each side under dorsal segmental spines often present with a reddish band of less extent than in P. bicolor and largely replaced by sulphur yellowish tinge; slenderer and smaller than P. bicolor, less flattened; segmental spines blunt, raised on small fleshy prominences and directed posteriorly on last three segments; dorsal spine one-third length of others on segments 6-11. Posterior respiratory process: one and a half times as broad as long with a constriction about two-thirds along its length demarcating a basal nodular region; spiracular plates separated by a deep median groove; dorsal spurs long, pointed; interspiracular ornamentation of small nodules; spiracles arched on high carinae.
Source of material: Collected from Sarothumnus scoparius (L.) at Silwood Park.