A new species of scuttle fly (Diptera: Phoridae) parasitizing a termite (Isoptera: Termitidae) in Malaysia.

摘要

Misotermes mindeni Disney & Neoh n. sp. is described from specimens reared from soldiers of Macrotermes gilvus. INTRODUCTION Misotermes exenterans parasitizes the soldiers of Macrotermes gilvus in Java (Schmitz 1938, Kalshoven 1938). Its females scatter large numbers of eggs at a time in the host termite's nest. Silvestri (1926) originally reported a larva in this termite species in the Philippines, which he thought might be a conopid, but which is now considered to have been a species of Misotermes (Ferrar, 1987). We here report and describe a new species of Misotermes parasitizing the same host species in Malaysia. The new species was reared from its host termites in the laboratory. The termites were kept in polyethylene containers with moistened vermiculates under environmental conditions of 28+or-1 C, 90% rh and in complete darkness. After the pupae were formed, they were collected and kept inside a clean container under similar environmental conditions. The emerged adult flies were collected and transferred into 70% ethanol. RHLD then slide mounted the specimens in Berlese Fluid (Disney 2001).