Australian endemic Drosophila IV. Queensland rain forest species collected at fruit baits, with descriptions of two species

Abstract

Australian Drosophila species attracted to fermented fruits are mainly of the subgenera Drosophila and Sophophora. With the exception of D. (Sophophora) dispar, all non-cosmopolitan species are exclusively of tropical and subtropical rain forests. Greatest species diversities occur in these and other subgenera in the floristically most complex forests, declining with increasing altitude and latitude. The cosmopolitan members of the genus are rare in rain forests, otherwise suitable niches being, presumably, occupied. D. (Drosophila) persicae, sp. nov., and D. (Sophophora) ironensis, sp. nov., are described, both collected in complex mesophyll vine forests. Of these D. persicae is one of only four non-cosmopolitan species of subgenus Drosophila in Australia, and apparently the only one entirely restricted to Australia. Apart from the cosmopolitan species D. immigrans, members of the subgenus Drosophila are not found south of north Queensland. Only two Sophophora species are common in more southern regions: one, D. dispar, extends across Victoria into temperate rain forests, while the other, D. pseudotakahashii, does not. Predictably, these two species are common in the depauperate highland habitats of north Queensland.