Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 5737 No. 4: 29 Dec. 2025
Type: Article
Published: 2025-12-29
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5737.4.3
Page range: 509-532
Abstract views: 72
PDF downloaded: 4

Review of the Indian species of Metadon Reemer, 2013 (Diptera: Syrphidae: Microdontinae), with description of two new species

Department of Agricultural Entomology; School of Agricultural Sciences; Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham; Coimbatore 642109 Tamil Nadu; India.
Department of Entomology; College of Agriculture; Vellayani; Kerala Agricultural University; Thiruvananthapuram 695522; Kerala; India.
Diptera Myrmecophiles biodiversity taxonomy Delhi Ridge Western Ghats ant flies

Abstract

The hoverfly genus Metadon Reemer, 2013 is reviewed from India and two new species, M. ghorpadei sp. nov. and M. reemeri sp. nov., are described from New Delhi and Tamil Nadu, respectively; based on morphological and molecular analyses. Six species of Metadon that were previously reported from India are illustrated and briefly diagnosed. A new combination, Metadon unicolor (Brunetti) comb. nov., is proposed for Microdon unicolor Brunetti, 1915. An identification key to the genera of Microdontinae from India, a key to the Indian species of Metadon and a provisional species checklist for this genus are provided. This is the first record of Metadon from southern India. Habitat profile and conservation aspects are discussed for the two new species.

 

References

  1. Aguado-Aranda, P., Ricarte, A., Nedeljković, Z., Kelso, S., van Eck, A.P.W., Skevington, J.H. & Marcos-García, M. Á (2023) Are Appearances Deceiving? Morpho-Genetic Complexity of the Eumerus tricolor Group (Diptera: Syrphidae) in Europe, with a Focus on the Iberian Peninsula. Insects, 14 (6), 541. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects14060541
  2. Aguado-Aranda, P., Ricarte, A., Nedeljković, Z., Hauser, M., Kelso, S., Sainz-Escudero, L., Skevington, J.H. & Marcos-García, M. Á (2024) Unveiling the Mainland vs. Insular Variability of the Eumerus barbarus Species Group (Diptera: Syrphidae) in the Western Mediterranean Basin. Insects, 15 (4), 239. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects15040239
  3. Biswas, J., Dookia, S. & Faisal, M. (2017) Butterflies of Delhi with new additions and an annotated checklist from Delhi, India. International Journal of Zoology Studies, 2 (6), 4–10.
  4. Bonelli, S., Witek, M., Canterino, S., Sielezniew, M., Stankiewicz–Fiedurek, A., Tartally, A., Balletto, E. & Schönrogge, K. (2011) Distribution, host specificity, and the potential for cryptic speciation in hoverfly Microdon myrmicae (Diptera: Syrphidae), a social parasite of Myrmica ants. Ecological Entomology, 36, 135–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2311.2010.01253.x
  5. Brunetti, E. (1907) Notes on the Oriental Syrphidae. Part I. Records of the Indian Museum, 1, 379–380, pls. XI–XIII. https://doi.org/10.26515/rzsi/v1/i4/1907/163412
  6. Brunetti, E. (1908) Notes on Oriental Syrphidae with descriptions of new species. Part I. Records of the Indian Museum, 2 (1), 49–96. [and figs in Brunetti (1907)] https://doi.org/10.26515/rzsi/v2/i1/1908/163308
  7. Brunetti, E. (1910) Notes on Ceylon Diptera. Spolia Zeylonica, 6, 170–172.
  8. Brunetti, E. (1915) Notes on Oriental Syrphidae, with descriptions of new species. Part II. Records of the Indian Museum, 11, 201–256, pl. XIII. https://doi.org/10.26515/rzsi/v11/i3/1915/163067
  9. Brunetti, E. (1923) Diptera. Vol. III. Pipunculidae, Syrphidae, Conopidae, Oestridae. In: Shipley, A.E. (Ed.), The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Taylor & Francis, London, pp. 1–424.
  10. Champion, H.G. & Seth, S.K. (1968) A revised survey of the forest types of India. Government of India Press, Delhi, xxvii + 404 pp., 103 pls.
  11. Cheng, X.-Y. & Thompson, F.C. (2008) A generic conspectus of the Microdontinae (Diptera: Syrphidae) with the description of two new genera from Africa and China. Zootaxa, 1879 (1), 21–48. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.1879.1.3
  12. Chroni, A., Djan, M., Vidaković, D.O., Petanidou, T. & Vujić, A. (2017) Molecular species delimitation in the genus Eumerus (Diptera: Syrphidae). Bulletin of Entomological Research, 107, 126–138. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007485316000729
  13. Donahue, J.P. (1966) An annotated list of butterflies of Delhi. The journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 63, 235–269.
  14. Elmes, G.W., Barr, B., Thomas, J.A. & Clarke, R.T. (1999) Extreme host specificity by Microdon mutabilis (Diptera: Syrphidae), a social parasite of ants. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 266, 447–453. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1999.0658
  15. Folmer, O., Black, M., Hoeh, W., Lutz, R. & Vrijenhoek, R. (1994) DNA primers for amplification of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 from diverse metazoan invertebrates. Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology, 3, 294–299.
  16. Ghorpadé, K. (2014) An updated check-list of the Hover-flies (Diptera–Syrphidae) recorded in the Indian subcontinent. Colemania, 44, 1–30.
  17. Ghorpadé, K. (2019) Hover-Flies (Diptera: Syrphidae) recorded from “Dravidia”, or Central and Peninsular India and Sri Lanka: an annotated checklist and bibliography. In: Ramani, S., Mohanraj, P. & Yeshwanth, H.M. (Eds.), Indian Insects: Diversity and Science. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, pp. 325–388. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429061400-18
  18. Ghosh, P. (2004) Forest fragmentation: A threat to global biodiversity. ENVIS Bulletin on Himalayan Ecology, 12 (2), 17–26.
  19. Gilasian, E., Reemer, M. & Parchami-Araghi, M. (2015) The first southwest Asian record of the subfamily Microdontinae, and the description of a new species of Metadon Reemer from Iran (Diptera: Syrphidae). Zootaxa, 4058 (1), 112–118. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4058.1.6
  20. Hall, T.A. (1999) BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symposium Series, 41, 95–98.
  21. Iwai, H., Horikawa, D.D., Arakawa, K., Tomita, M., Komatsu, T. & Maruyama, M. (2016) Rearing and observation of immature stages of the hoverfly Microdon katsurai (Diptera, Syrphidae). Biodiversity Data Journal, 4, e10185. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e10185
  22. Komal, J., Shashank, P.R., Sondhi, S., Madan, S., Sondhi, Y., Meshram, N.M. & Anooj, S.S. (2021) Moths (Insecta: Lepidoptera) of Delhi, India: An illustrated checklist based on museum specimens and surveys. Biodiversity Data Journal, 9, e73997. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.9.e73997
  23. Nedeljković, Z., Ačanski, J., Djan, M., Obreht-Vidaković, D., Ricarte, A. & Vujić, A. (2015) An integrated approach to delimiting species borders in the genus Chrysotoxum Meigen, 1803 (Diptera: Syrphidae), with description of two new species. Contributions to Zoology, 84 (4), 285–304. https://doi.org/10.1163/18759866-08404002
  24. Paul, M. (2021) Impact of urbanization on moth (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Heterocera) diversity across different urban landscapes of Delhi, India. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 41 (3), 204–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chnaes.2021.01.008
  25. Reemer, M. (2012) Unravelling a hotchpotch: Phylogeny and classification of the Microdontinae (Diptera: Syrphidae). PhD Thesis, Leiden University, Leidan, 384 pp.
  26. Reemer, M. (2013) Review and phylogenetic evaluation of associations between Microdontinae (Diptera: Syrphidae) and ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Psyche, 2013, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/538316
  27. Reemer, M. & Sankararaman, H (2024) Revision of the Oriental species of the hoverfly genus Paramixogaster Brunetti, 1923 (Diptera, Syrphidae, Microdontinae). ZooKeys, 1208, 1–48. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1208.122829
  28. Reemer, M. & Ståhls, G. (2013a) Generic revision and species classification of the Microdontinae (Diptera: Syrphidae). ZooKeys, 288, 1–213. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.288.4095
  29. Reemer, M. & Ståhls, G. (2013b) Phylogenetic relationships of Microdontinae (Diptera: Syrphidae) based on molecular and morphological characters. Systematic Entomology, 38, 661–688. https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.12020
  30. Rondani, C. (1845) Ordinamento sistematico dei generi italiani degli insetti ditteri [part]. Nuovi Annali delle Scienze Naturali, Bologna, 2 (2), 443–459.
  31. Sack, P. (1922) H. Sauter's Formosa-Ausbeute: Syrphiden II (Dipteren). Wiegmann’s Archiv für Naturgeschichte, 87 (11), 258–276.
  32. Sanger, F., Nicklen, S. & Coulson, A.R. (1977) DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 74, 5463–5467. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.74.12.5463
  33. Schönrogge, K., Barr, B., Wardlaw, J.C., Napper, E., Gardner, M.G., Breen, J., Elmes, G.W. & Thomas, J.A. (2002) When rare species become endangered: cryptic speciation in myrmecophilous hoverflies. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 75, 291–300. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1095-8312.2002.00019.x
  34. Sen, N. (1952) Geomorphological evolution of Delhi area. Current Science, 21, 157–159.
  35. Sengupta, J., Roy, B., Naskar, A. & Banerjee, D. (2024) A Catalogue of Indian Hoverflies (Insecta: Diptera: Syrphidae). Zoological Survey of India, 420, 198 pp.
  36. Settele, J. & Kühn, E. (2009) Insect conservation. Science, 325 (5936), 41–42. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1176892
  37. Shirt, D.B. (1987) British Red Data Books: Insects. Nature Conservancy Council, Peterborough, 402 pp.
  38. Sinha, G.N. (2014) An Introduction to Delhi Ridge. Department of Forest and Wildlife, Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, New Delhi, xxiv + 154 pp.
  39. Stĺhls, G., Vujiă, A. & Milankov, V. (2008) Cheilosia vernalis (Diptera, Syrphidae) complex: molecular and morphological variability. Annales Zoologici Fennici, 45, 149–159. https://doi.org/10.5735/086.045.0206
  40. Thomas, J.A., Simcox, D.J. & Clarke, R.T. (2009) Successful conservation of a threatened Maculinea Butterfly. Science, 325, 80–83. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1175726
  41. Thompson, F.C. (1999) A key to the genera of the flower flies (Diptera: Syrphidae) of the Neotropical Region including descriptions of new genera and species and a glossary of taxonomic terms. Contributions to Entomology International, 3, 321–378.
  42. Thompson, F.C., Mengual, X., Young, A.D. & Skevington, J.H. (2017) Flower flies (Diptera: Syrphidae) of Philippines, Solomon Islands, Wallacea and New Guinea. In: Telnov, D., Barclay, M.V.L. & Pauwels, O.S.G. (Eds.), Biodiversity, Biogeography and Nature Conservation in Wallacea and New Guinea. The Entomological Society of Latvia, Riga, pp. 501–524.
  43. Vujić, A., Radenkoviă, S., Stĺhls, G., Ačanski, J., Stefanovic, A., Veseliă, S., Andrić, A. & Hayat, R. (2012) Systematics and taxonomy of the ruficornis group of genus Merodon Meigen (Diptera Syrphidae). Systematic Entomology, 37 (3), 578–602. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3113.2012.00631.x
  44. Witek, M., Casacci, L.P., Barbero, F., Patricelli, D., Sala, M., Bossi, S., Maffe, M., Woyciechowski, M., Balletto, E. & Bonelli, S. (2013) Interspecific relationships in co-occurring populations of social parasites and their host ants. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 109, 699–709. https://doi.org/10.1111/bij.12074
  45. Young, A.D., Marshall, S.A. & Skevington, J.H. (2016) Revision of Platycheirus Lepeletier and Serville (Diptera: Syrphidae) in the Nearctic north of Mexico. Zootaxa, 4082 (1), 1–317. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4082.1.1

How to Cite

Sankararaman, H. & Anooj, S.S. (2025) Review of the Indian species of Metadon Reemer, 2013 (Diptera: Syrphidae: Microdontinae), with description of two new species. Zootaxa, 5737 (4), 509–532. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5737.4.3