Bezzia (Homobezzia) snowi Lane, 1958

Bezzia (Homobezzia) snowi Lane View in CoL

( Fig. 1E View FIGURE 1 )

Bezzia snowi Lane, 1958: 34 View in CoL (female, male; Guatemala; figures). Wirth 1974: 53 (world catalog); Spinelli & Wirth 1991: 10 (redescription, female, male, pupa; key, figures); Borkent & Wirth 1997: 129 (world catalog); Borkent & Spinelli 2000: 62 (catalog of new world south of the United States); Borkent & Spinelli 2007: 94 (Neotropical catalog); Spinelli & Wolff 2016: 126 ( Ceratopogonidae View in CoL of Colombia; distribution); Ronderos et al. 2018: 645 (list immature stages); Anjos et al. 2018: 152 (diagnostic characters of pupae); Borkent & Dominiak 2020: 204 (world catalog); Santarém & Felippe˗Bauer 2021: 34 (Brazilian distribution); Spinelli et al. 2023: 64 (catalog of biting midges from Argentina).

Diagnosis. Only Neotropical species in the venustula group with the following combination of characters: female with legs yellowish, distal 1/3 of hind femur and distal 1/5 of hind tibia brown; femora armed ventrally with 5–8 spines on fore leg, 3–6 on mid leg, and 1–4 on hind leg; tarsi yellowish brown except 5th tarsomeres dark; halter dark brown; three pairs of long slender gland rods; male sternite 9 with shallow caudomedian excavation, tergite 9 with elongated apicolateral lobes; gonocoxite with blunt anteromesal protuberance; aedeagus triangular; parameres long with bilobed well-developed anterolateral plates, distal process with rounded tip.

New country record. MEXICO, Guerrero, Ayutla de los Libres, La Unión, “Rancho Camalote”, jun-2009, Malaise trap, Bibiano-Marín, W., 1 female CAIM . Oaxaca, San Juan Guichicovi, El Zacatal, potrero, 28-jul-2009, CDC trap, Salceda-Sanchez, B., Rodríguez, A. A., 1 female CAIM .

Distribution. Mexico ( Guerrero, Oaxaca), Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Trinidad, Brazil.

Remarks. This species differs from other related species of this group mainly by their femora with ventral spines (5–8 fore, 3–6 middle and 1–4 hind), legs yellowish with distal 1/3 of hind femur and distal 1/5 of hind tibia brown, two subspherical spermathecae with long necks, slightly unequal and parameres twice as long as length of aedeagus.