Metasphenisca Hendel, 1914

Singh, Maneesh Pal & Hancock, David Lawrence, 2025, Five new species of subfamily Tephritinae (Tephritidae: Diptera) from Himalayas and description of postabdominal structures in Chaetostomella completa (Kapoor, Malla & Ghosh), Pliomelaena spathuliniforma (Dirlbek & Dirlbek) and P. zonogastra (Bezzi), Zootaxa 5689 (2), pp. 299-332 : 325

publication ID	https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5689.2.4
publication LSID	lsid:zoobank.org:pub:53139C23-EDE4-4BBF-9F20-71F0595192FF
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17319421
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/039B87BA-6B30-FF9E-FF0D-C31F487BD8E9
treatment provided by	Plazi
scientific name	Metasphenisca Hendel, 1914
status

Treatment

Genus Metasphenisca Hendel, 1914 View in CoL

Type species Metasphenisca gracilipes (Loew) .

Metasphenisca Hendel View in CoL was discussed by Hancock (1990, 1991 & 2010) and includes African as well as Indian species. Only two species were recorded previously from the Indian subcontinent, M. nigricans (Wiedemann) View in CoL and M. reinhardi (Wiedemann) View in CoL . Metasphenisca bifaria (Munro) View in CoL was synonymized with M. nigricans View in CoL by Hancock (2007b). The genus can be identified by its inverted U-shaped lunule, longer than length of scape, flagellum dorsally pubescent, outer vertical seta shorter than inner and stubby white, scutum shiny black, predominantly black wing with anterior and posterior elongate hyaline indentations, narrow costal band connected to black cell sc, elongate argents, narrow wing base, apical scutellar setae usually smaller than basal and tubular opening of glans.

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Arthropoda
Class	Insecta
Order	Diptera
Family	Tephritidae