Australian and New Guinea species of the biting midge genus Brachypogon (Diptera : Ceratopogonidae)

Abstract

The status and differentiation of the genera Ceratopogon, Brachypogon and Isohelea have remained uncertain despite repeated attempts at clarification. In 1964 Tokunaga described five species of Ceratopogon from Papua New Guinea, treating Brachypogon and Isohelea as synonyms of Ceratopogon. Wirth & Grogan (1988) determined that Ceratopogon was a purely Holarctic genus, and listed four of Tokunaga's species in Brachypogon, which they regarded as a genus with two subgenera, Brachypogon s.s. and Isohelea. (The fifth species was transferred to another genus, Nannohelea.) No species of the Ceratopogon group have been described from Australia. In this paper 24 species, 20 of which are new, are recorded from Australia and New Guinea. Seventeen of the new species — B. artemis, B. bryanae, B. corniger, B. medusae, B. bifurcus, B. pollices, B. tabernaculum, B. gearyae, B. hercules, B. subiectus, B. gravidus, B. idolon, B. lorica, B. curtus, B. institor, B. griffithsae and B. nicolaii — and two of Tokunaga's species, B. petersi and B. novaguineae, are placed in Brachypogon (Brachypogon), in two species-groups. Two of the new species, B. hadrosaurus and B. dehiscens, are placed in Brachypogon (Isohelea), while B. alexandros, sp. nov. and Tokunaga's B. maai and B. papuensis are placed in a new subgenus of Brachypogon, Sarissohelea. Detailed diagnoses of the subgenera are given, and the pupae of Brachypogon (Brachypogon) species are described for the first time.