Rhagio pollinosus Leonard 1930

Rhagio pollinosus new species
Wholly rather light gray pollinose, sometimes somewhat subshining; eyes distinctly separated in the male; mesonotum with blackish hairs, trivittate; abdomen with pale hairs; halteres yellowish or tinged more or less with brownish; legs brownish yellow, femora usually somewhat darker; wings very slightly tinged with grayish, veins dark brown, stigma indistinct.
Male. — Length, 5 to 5.5 mm. Head: Eyes separated by slightly more than the width of the ocellar tubercle; the front with sides parallel and mostly brownish pollinose except narrowly along the sides and just above the antennae which with the face are light gray pollinose; sides of face and the cheeks with fine whitish hairs which are longer on the cheeks; proboscis and palpi yellowish brown or dark brownish, more or less gray pollinose, the latter with rather long black hairs which, however, in some lights appear rather pale; antennae almost black, first and second segments with a few short black hairs; occiput light gray pruinose with short black hairs behind eyes; ocellar tubercle with a few rather long black hairs.
Thorax: Mesonotum pale gray pollinose with three broad dark brown slightly subshining stripes, the middle one distinctly not reaching the scutellum and sometimes faintly divided on the median line; with sparse, rather long, almost erect black hairs which tend more or less to be arranged in rows especially on the disc; scutellum dark brown, somewhat subshining, on edge light gray pollinose, furnished with a few rather long black hairs; metanotum light gray pollinose, bare; pleura light gray pollinose, the propleural and metapleural hairs pale, the latter rather long; halteres yellowish, more or less tinged with brownish especially on the knob and sometimes towards the base of the stalk. " Abdomen: Wholly gray pollinose but on each segment with a broad fairly distinct rather dark brown band somewhat subshining and usually produced caudad in the middle, the band being obsolete in the first and on the last two or three segments; above and below with rather abundant, fairly short somewhat appressed pale hairs, which in some.lights appear golden.
Legs: Coxae light gray pollinose, the hairs whitish; remainder of legs yellowish, more or less tinged with brown, especially a broad band involving usually all but MORTIMER DEMAREST LEONARD llj
the base and tip of the femora; the tibiae darkened especially at the tip and the tarsi strongly tinged with dark brownish.
Wings: Membrane very faintly tinged with grayish; veins dark brown; stigma pale brownish to almost obsolete.
Female. — Length, 5 to 6 mm. Similar to male except that front is almost twice the width of the ocellar triangle and the legs, on the whole, seem inclined to be a little paler. In several specimens the anal cell is distinctly closed at the border and in one it even has a short petiole in both wings alike.
Holotype. — Male; Los Angeles, California, March, [U. S. N. M., Cat. no. 24063].
Allotype. — Female: as above.
Paratypes: — Eight c? and 9 as follows : 1 cf and 3 9 , Los Angeles, California, March, [U. S. N. M.]; 1 cf and 1 9 , as above, [Leonard]; 1 d Stanford University, Mar. 6, 1910, (F. R. Cole) [returned to F. R. Cole]; 1 9 , San Diego, California, Mar. 24, 1913, (E. P. Van Duzee), [returned to E. P. Van Duzee for California Academy of Sciences Colin.].
This species is apparently near R. pruinosus Bigot as far as can be ascertained from Bigot's description and an attempt was made to refer the specimens to this species. After making due allowance for discrepancies between the above material and Bigot's somewhat careless descriptions the fact that the eyes are so broadly separated in the male and that the mesonotum has rather long black hairs, seemed to warrant assigning the material to a new species. These two characters, especially the former, are so striking that it would seem that Bigot could hardly have overlooked them. R. pollinosus falls in that group of Rhagio which have the eyes of the male separated and the sides of the front parallel and which is composed of R. gracilis Johns., californicus n. sp., and brunneipennis n. sp.