Coproica urbana ( Richards, 1960 )

Coproica urbana ( Richards, 1960) View in CoL

Figs. 12 View FIGURES 9–12 , 277–288 View FIGURES 277–279 View FIGURES 280–284 View FIGURES 285–288

Leptocera (Coproica) urbana Richards, 1960 c: 204 View in CoL [both sexes]. Type locality: USA, Illinois, Urbana. HT male (USNM).

Description. Body length 1.1–1.8 mm. Uniformly light to dark brown. Face and frons brown. Interfrontal bristles in 3 subequal pairs, postocellar bristles cruciate, small postocellar setae absent. Eye to gena ratio approximately 2:1; 3 small dorsally curved genal bristles in longitudinal row, additional small setae between longitudinal row and ventral margin of gena.

Scutellum with 10–14 discal setae arranged in 2 rows between basal 1/4 and 1/2; 0-2 lateral setae between larger anterior and posterior marginal scutellar bristles. Katepisternum with 2 small, subequal dorsal bristles, each approximately 1/6 as long as the distance between dorsal margin of katepisternum and wing base. Legs and fore coxa light brown to yellow. Mid tibia with 1 proximal posterodorsal bristle at 2/5. Mid basitarsus with anterior row of small bristles extending from 1/3 to apex, a stout sub-basal anteroventral bristle (occasionally with additional anteroventral bristle distal to sub-basal bristle), and a cluster of 2–4 bristles at 1/2 (typically 2 anteroventral and 1 posteroventral bristle, or 1 anteroventral and 1 posteroventral bristle). Second costal sector 0.8–1.0 times as long as third costal sector. Costal bypass long, extending 7 or more vein widths beyond R 4+5.

Male terminalia: Sternite 5 rectangular, discal bristles uniform in size. Sternite 6 straight medially. Epandrium with enlarged pair of dorsolateral bristles; subanal plate incomplete; cercus with a large central bristle, ventral margin flat and straight, deflected medially. Surstylus with rounded posteroventral process with slight constriction at base and apical patch of setae. Postgonites asymmetrical, left postgonite curved, narrow, rounded and spoon-like at apex, right postgonite straight, narrow on distal 1/3, with fine point at apex. Basiphallus elongate, straight, tubular, open posterodorsally; epiphallus short. Lateral sclerites on distiphallus rounded, narrow, with sharp dorsomedial process, and short, narrow apicoventral process; central sclerite fused apically with lateral sclerites.

Female terminalia: Tergite 8 reduced to 2 lateral sclerites connected by dorsal membrane. Tergite 10 pollinose, broadly fused to cerci; cerci pollinose, apical setae short and sinuate. Sternite 7 broad, rounded, with shallow posteromedial notch. Sternite 8 rounded, with anteromedial point, a pair of larger anterior setae, and anterior and posterior rows of 4 small setae. Sternite 10 with enlarged pair of medial bristles, posterior margin curved dorsally. Spermathecae spherical, with conical base; short portion of duct sclerotized, with sharp constriction at base of bulb, duct length 4–5 times as long as spermathecal bulb.

Type material. Holotype male: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: IL: Urbana , 1.ii.1931, reared, (Type No. 65053 USNM, examined by Dr. Norrbom).

Other material examined. See Appendix A.

Distribution: Nearctic: Canada (AB, BC, MB, NB, NS, ON, SK) ; USA (AL, AR, AZ, CO, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, MI, MN, MS, MT, NC, ND, NH, NM, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WV, WY). Neotropical: Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico (CHI, OAX).

Comments. Coproica urbana is an extremely common species, and almost half of all the specimens examined during this study were this species. The slight variations in surstylus shape and great variation in ventral mid basitarsus bristle patterns, a character considered important within Coproica ( Collin 1956; Richards 1960), made the assessment of the variation in this species exceptionally difficult. Coproica urbana , as treated here, was divided into four morphospecies in an unpublished MSc thesis ( Swann 1993) but we could find no correlated, discontinuous characters that reliably separate these putative morphospecies. Hundreds of dissections revealed a consistent distiphallus shape across the morphotypes, which suggests to us that these represent a single species.

The morphological evidence that C. urbana represents a single biological species was supported by limited mitochondrial DNA evidence, as five specimens “barcoded” (sequenced for Cytochrome Oxidase 1) showed very little variation, falling within 1% of each other. Four of these sequenced specimens were from Ontario and one was from Texas (a different putative morphospecies according to Swann (1993)), supporting our interpretation of the morphological variation in this group as infraspecific .