Megaselia Rondani, 1856
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publication ID |
https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2025.2461656 |
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DOI |
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14983192 |
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persistent identifier |
https://treatment.plazi.org/id/D76CE478-4008-E524-FEB2-9D92FD3AA746 |
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treatment provided by |
Plazi |
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scientific name |
Megaselia Rondani |
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Megaselia Rondani View in CoL (total of 27 photos of 13
mating events examined: Figure 8 View Figure 8 C-H)
Given that Megaselia is one of the largest genera of the animal kingdom with about 1700 species described ( Brown 2022), it would not be surprising if diverse mating patterns were found across the genus. Some of the photos examined show a standard mating position ( Figure 8F View Figure 8 ). Others show a much smaller male, the female with her wings slightly lifted and the male touching her abdomen during mating ( Figure 8H View Figure 8 ). Other than this variation in position, nothing else noteworthy was observed based on the photos.
Brown and Porras (2015) described an extravagant display of Megaselia females from Costa Rica which evert abdominal sacs and flutter their wings to attract mates (10.5281/zenodo.14628212). They also highlighted that abdominal eversible sacs and display behaviour are probably present in the females of other species in Megaselia and in other phorid genera (such as Phalacrotophora , Physoptera and Syneura ) as they have similar morphology of the abdomen with large areas not covered by tergites. We confirmed this prediction here by documenting abdominal sacs eversion in at least three other groups ( Figures 6G,H View Figure 6 , 7E,F View Figure 7 , 10C View Figure 10 ). Additionally, we found photos of groups of Megaselia females aggregating on leaves ( Figure 8C–D View Figure 8 ). One possible explanation for such aggregation could be to display and attract males, another possible example of sex-role reversal in the genus ( Sivinski 1988).
No known copyright restrictions apply. See Agosti, D., Egloff, W., 2009. Taxonomic information exchange and copyright: the Plazi approach. BMC Research Notes 2009, 2:53 for further explanation.
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SubFamily |
Metopininae |