Howickia palmai Marshall, sp. nov

Howickia palmai Marshall sp. nov. (Figs. 62���65) Description. Colour: Body and most of head black with palpus, antenna (except pedicel), trochanters, knees and tarsi yellow to orange; halter brown to black on a yellow stem. Head: Eye height 2.4X genal height. Thorax: Scutellum microtrichose, 3.0X as wide as long; apical scutellar bristles as long as basal pair. Male abdomen: Sternite 5 subequal in length to sternite 4 laterally but shallowly excised posteromedially with a pale concavity; pale area with a cluster of short, stout bristles on each half. Subanal plate broad and complete, each half subquadrate, not strongly differentiated from broadly rounded lower/outer part of cercus. Surstylus small, subquadrate, with a very large posteroventral spur on a narrow process. Postgonite uniformly broad over most of length, straight, slightly tapered apically. Basiphallus frame-like, projecting beyond distiphallus base for a distance equal to one half of width of distiphallus base. Female terminalia: Not observed, the only available females have the ovipositor totally retracted. Type material. Holotype male and 4 paratypes (2 females, 2 males, 1 with abdomen removed, paratypes in alcohol, NMNZ): New Zealand: Mt. Kaukau, Wellington, R 27 / 58954, 20.Dec. 2012, F.M. Climo, under divaricating shrubs. Etymology. The species name is a patronym honoring Ricardo Palma at the NMNZ. Comments. Howickia palmai is externally very similar to H. myersi, but the postgonites differ. Furthermore, the surstyli of H. palmai are symmetrical and lack the prominent anterior lobe of the latter species.
Published as part of Marshall, S. A., Luk, S. P. L. & Dong, H., 2014, A revision of the New Zealand species of Howickia Richards, pp. 1-36 in Zootaxa 3887 (1) on page 28, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3887.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/287460