A new species of the genus Eumerus Meigen, 1822 (Diptera: Syrphidae) from Turkmenistan

The genus Eumerus Meigen, 1822 unites nearly 300 species, which live mainly in arid and semiarid regions of Eurasia and Africa (Stackelberg, 1961; Peck, 1988; Speight, 2016; Smit et al., 2017; Pape & Evenhuis, 2019). The larvae of these hoverflies breed usually in bulbs and other succulent organs of the angiosperms, and some are known as pests of cultivated plants (Pérez-Bañón & Marcos-García, 1998; Ricarte et al., 2017; Piwowarczyk & Mielczarek, 2018). The species diversity of the genus is the main reason of increased attention from taxonomists (Grković et al., 2015, 2017; van Steenis et al., 2017; Chroni et al., 2018; Grković et al., 2019a, b). There are some distinct species-groups within the genus, but other members of the genus are distinguished by a unique combination of characters as the species described below. A single specimen of the new species was caught by A.S. Lelej in the depression of Eroyulanduz Salt Lake, located in Bathyz Plateau within the nature reserve of the same name.

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