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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #306441
Title: A review of the genus Dudaia Hedicke, 1923 (Diptera, Sphaeroceridae)

Author
item PAPP, L. - Hungarian Natural History Museum
item Norrbom, Allen

Submitted to: Zootaxa
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/31/2015
Publication Date: 9/1/2015
Citation: Papp, L., Norrbom, A.L. 2015. A review of the genus Dudaia Hedicke, 1923 (Diptera, Sphaeroceridae). Zootaxa. 4011:1-65.

Interpretive Summary: Lesser dung flies (Diptera: Sphaeroceridae) are one of the most common types of flies in agroecosystems. They breed in decaying organic matter, such as compost and excrement. The larvae feed on microorganisms and decaying substances, and their tunneling through the material speeds its breakdown into soil. They are important to agriculture because of this role in nutrient recyling. More than 2,000 species are known throughout the world. This provides new information about a poorly known group of these flies from Africa. Twenty species are treated, including ten species recognized and described for the first time. Tools to identify these species (descriptions, illustrations, identification key) are provided, as well as information about their geographic distributions. Revision of this group was important for the completion of the chapter on this family of flies for the forthcoming Manual of Afrotropical Diptera. This information is important to ecologists, agronomists, regulatory agencies or anyone else who wishes to communicate about these flies.

Technical Abstract: Species of the Afrotropical genus Dudaia Hedicke, 1923 of the subfamily Copromyzinae are revised. The status of Afroborborus Curran, 1931 as a junior synonym of Dudaia is corroborated. Twelve species have been described hitherto, two of them are proposed here to be junior synonyms: Copromyza (Dudaia) simulatilis Richards, 1980, and the name it replaced, Borborus (Dudaia) similis Vanschuytbroeck, 1948, are junior synonyms of Copromyza (Gymnometopina) jeanneli Richards, 1938; and Borborus (Dudaia) uelensis Vanschuytbroeck, 1959 is a junior synonym of Dudaia straeleni (Vanschuytbroeck, 1948). Ten species new to science are described: Dudaia abdita sp. nov. (Kenya), Dudaia aethiopica sp. nov. (Ethiopia), Dudaia albimana sp. nov. (Madagascar), Dudaia brevis sp. nov. (Madagascar), Dudaia communis sp. nov. (Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania), Dudaia malagasiensis sp. nov. (Madagascar), Dudaia microtuberculata sp. nov. (South Africa), Dudaia paralbimana sp. nov. (Madagascar), Dudaia pseudohumeralis sp. nov. (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Dudaia spangleri sp. nov. (Kenya).