Laphria apila (Bromley):
Redescription


HEAD
    mystax Upper and central portions of upper face lacking the long erect hairs found in many other species; most the hairs present being either medium-length, erect and yellow, or shorter, somewhat procumbent, and yellow (a few of the former are intermixed with medium-length black hairs); as is usual the shorter hairs overalp the top of the gibbosity and grade laterally into procumbent yellow hairs, which project over the gibbosity to each side; hairs on gibbosity erect, yellow above oral margin in middle; black beneath this to crease marking ventral extent of buldge, black hairs also extend along the eye margin dorsally to about half height of gibbosity; the area framed on each side of the oral margin by the gibbosity dorsally, and the inner margin of the eye dorsolaterally, is bare.

    beard black on upper two-fifths, yellow on lower three-fifths; black hairs shorter than yellow, and hidden behind head when it is viewed directly from the front

    hairs underneath the proboscis yellow

    palpal hairs all yellow on first segment; all or most are black on second segment (a few yellow hairs are present in the female)

THORAX
    postpronotal lobes in male with medium-length, erect black hairs, which let the ground color of brownish black to black show through; the ground color also shows through in the case of the female, where the hairs are all yellow

    mesonotum in male, disk, except for notopleurae, covered with short, sparse golden hairs which allow the polished black ground color to show through; posterior margins with fringe of much longer yellow hair, which is longest and most thickly set on the posterior calli; the contrast formed by these two is striking; notopleurae with medium-length black hairs; the hairing in the female is more uniform; the long fringe of yellow hairs is present as in the male, but these are more even in length, and continue anteriorly to replace the short golden hairs of the male on the disk, and the longer black hairs on the notopleurae, making the mesonotum appear yellow from a distance

    tuft of hairs in front of wings black in male, yellow in female

    tuft of hairs in front of haltere mostly yellow in male (a few black hairs are present); entirely yellow in female

    scutellar hairs very short and black on disk, long and black on margin

    ground color of legs from a distance the ground color appears to be black; but when viewed with a dissecting microscope, from an angle the surface of the femora appears to be blue black, and when viewed directly, that is from right angles, with artificial light, it appears very dark reddish -brown; the surface of the tibiae varies similarly; the reddish brown, however, seems to be more predominant than the blue black

    fore- and mid-tibiae fore-tibiae with long yellow hairs extending the entire length of the dorsal and posterior surfaces; mid-tibiae similar, with the difference that the hairs also extend around to the anterior surface; in both cases, the hairs on the dorsal surface are sparse and inconspicuous, and invisible from certain angles; this is also true of the hairs on the anterior surface of the mid-tibiae

    hind tibiae entirely black haired

    hind femora entirely black haired; without differentiated band of longer hairs on dorsal or ventral surfaces, and without differentiated hairs at apex or "knee"

ABDOMEN
    abdominal segments male with upper surface of tergites bare, showing a ground color of polished black; black hairs present at extreme lateral margins of all tergites; these hairs are most evident at the sides of the first segment, and progressively less so as one moves posteriorly; yellow hairs entirely lacking; female similar, except that 1) the hairs at the sides of tergite 1 are a mixture of black and yellow, with the majority being yellow, 2) the hairs the at sides of tergite 2 are more numerous than in the male, and most of them are yellow, the black hairs being confined to the extreme lateral margins, and 3) the hairs at the lateral margins of tergite 5 are much more numerous than in the male, extend further toward the mid-line, and are yellow, forming a conspicuous patch on each side of the segment


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