Despite being a relatively small country, Ecuador has a variety of ecosystems that has favored high speciation levels. One of these ecosystems is the high-altitude Polylepis forests. In these forests, there is great plant diversity including Asteraceae, which host a plethora of insects in their flowers, among which one can find species from the Drosophila onychophora species group. In this study, we describe two new species of Drosophila collected in a remnant of Polylepis pauta in the Páramo of Papallacta at 4000 m. Both species belong to the D. onychophora group: Drosophila yurag sp. nov. and Drosophila yuragshina sp. nov. The two species have elongated aedeagus that are typical of the group. Morphologically both species are very similar; the easiest way to distinguish them is by observing their wings.
Aedeagus; diversity; ecosystem; flowers; host
