Austrochares mexicanus Dreisbach 1966

Austrochares mexicanus Dreisbach
Holotype. — ? , Mexico: Veracruz: Minatitlan, 26 Aug.-l Sept. The following description is extracted from an unfinished manuscript of the late Robert R. Dreisbach, who should be credited with the discovery and naming of this species. The comments on variation which follow the description of the type and allotype are mine.
Description of type female. — Length 8.6 mm.; fore wing 7.4 mm. Head and thorax a shining black; abdomen completely rufous except extreme base of first tergite; coxae, trochanters, first two pair of femora and tibiae black; first pair of tarsi very dark rufous; apex of posterior femora and all of posterior tibiae and tarsi rufous with the apex of tarsal joints slightly darkened; antennae and mouth parts black, except mandibles in middle are slightly rufous; clypeus truncate in front, appearing concave by virtue of a black shining hairless rim over about middle of front; clypeus, face, front, pronotum and mesonotum densely silvery pubescent in reflected light, rest of thorax only slightly so, short white hair under head; all coxae silvery pubescent below, with no long hair; in side view clypeus elevated above face from base to apex; clypeus 2.4 X as broad as long and about 0.5 of its middle at base extends above the sides of face, and it does not extend under eyes; antennae about 0.5 X the length of second antennal segment above clypeus; lower interocular distance 1.2 X the upper; head about as long as broad; middle interocular distance 0.58 X the transfacial; lateral ocelli about 1.25 X as far from eyes as from each other; pronotum slightly concave behind; dorsal surface of propodeum on a slight slope, short and forming a steep rounded angle with posterior surface; wings very dark, actually black, when folded above abdomen; first and second recurrent veins meet second and third cubital cell about apical 0.3 and a little beyond middle; basal and transverse veins interstitial and in rear wings subdiscoidal vein is just barely apicad of cubitus; front basitarsi with four very long comb spines, even the first spine (which is the shortest) as long as second tarsal segment, all eight spines very long, and not spatulate; the tibiae and tarsi with many long spines, a row of prominent spines underneath last joint of posterior tarsi; all claws cleft.
Allotype. — 8 , same data as type [MSU].
Description of allotype male. — Length 9.2 mm., fore wing 8.2 mm. Head with the inner orbits from clypeus to above fore ocellus with broad white stripes which are indented with black opposite bases of antennae, and the outer 0.33 of width of clypeus also with a wide white band, which covers apical third of clypeus where the wide band is reduced to a preapical strip about 0.33 as the wide broad band on side which extends across the clypeus; posterior orbits also white; the posterior edge of pronotum bright yellow, clear across thorax; a small spot on mesonotum in center just behind tegula, the apical third of scutellum, the apical dorsal part of postscutellum, a preapical band on slope of propodeum, extending to the sides, and a spot on the outside just behind it, light yellow; a faint fuscous band at base of second tergite, a very broad yellow band on third tergite which reaches the sides, narrower yellowish band on rest of tergites which do not reach sides, except the 5th and 6th are all yellowish white dorsally; coxae all black, first two pair femora about apical 0.33 rufous, basal 0.66 blackish, third pair about apical 0.66 rufous; tibiae blackish at base and tip, rest rufous; tibial spurs white; tarsal segments white at base, black at apex; tibiae with a white streak on outside; tibiae rufous underneath, blackish underneath; a very prominent ocular-malar space between the eyes and the mandibles, about the length of the second antennal segment; the clypeus does not extend under the eyes and it is slightly more than 2.0 X as wide as long; lower interocular distance about equal to the upper; middle interocular distance about 0.63 X the transfacial; head 1.1 X as wide as high; lateral ocelli slightly farther from eyes than from each other; ratio of lengths of first four antennal segments 40:10:43:43; first antennal joint whitish on inside and the mandible whitish on almost its whole length, darkish at tip; eyes reach vertex and head is very small and thin; the lateral ocelli are located at the very edge of the line connecting the rear edge of eyes, the ocelli at the rear edge of vertex and the vertex starts sloping downward right at edge of ocelli; ratio of length of scutellum, postscutellum, and metapostnotum 60:20:5, these measurements right in middle, metapostnotum thus very narrow, but the postscutellum well developed; fore wings hyaline, except that the apex beyond the cubital cells is strongly blackened for about 0.75 of their length beyond the veins, and the cubital cells are also slightly fumose; the first and second recurrent veins meet second and third cubital cells beyond the middle at the apical 0.40; the third intercubital vein sloped inward so that the length of marginal vein on third cubital cell is only 1/11 of its length on cubitus; second cubital cell almost square; the basal and transverse veins in fore wings practically interstitial, and the discoidal vein in rear wings also practically interstitial; claws cf legs split; propodeum smooth, no ridges and in a smooth curve to apex; upright hair on pronotum and propodeum, body smooth but with very fine dense pubescence over most of body; subgenital plate with a dorsal flat surface almost its whole length; genitalia with the parameres hardly wider than a line, curved inward; parameres and parapenials of equal length, aedeagus slightly shorter, volsellae the shortest; the aedeagus split into two lobes about apical 0.25 [see figure 38, drawn by HEE from one of the paratypes]. Distribution. — Southern Mexico. (Map 26.)
Paratypes. — 1 2,4 $ $ , same data as type and allotype [MSU, Additional specimens examined. — 2 2 2, same data as type series [MSU]. 1 2 , Chiapas: Ixtapa, 11 April 1962 (FDP) [UCD].
Variation. — The females vary in length from 8.5 to 10 mm. MID varies from .58 to .63 X TFD; OOL exceeds POL slightly (as 5:4) in the Chiapas specimen; the anal and cubital veins of the hind wing are interstitial in one of the Veracruz specimens. Otherwise there is little variation worthy of note. The males vary in length from 7 to 9.2 mm. and show no noteworthy variation in color. The head varies from 1.05 to 1.10 X as wide as high, MID from .63 to .66 X TFD. The labrum is well exserted in all the males.