Biodiversity hotspot in the Sangha Trinational Protected Area revealed through Orthoptera Tettigoniidae
Author
Massa, Bruno
0000-0003-2127-0715
bruno.massa@unipa.it
text
Zootaxa
2023
2023-08-18
5331
1
1
67
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5331.1.1
journal article
264218
10.11646/zootaxa.5331.1.1
ebee8044-9130-4ce6-9c05-c0f7c65e7f1e
1175-5326
8260962
85D2BD10-1F94-44DF-98C9-9312A28EE584
Tribe
Plangiopsidini
Cadeña-Castaneda, 2015
According to
Cadeña-Castaneda (2015)
the tribe
Plangiopsidini
is diagnosed based on the following characters: face oval, eyes subcircular, pronotal disc flat and with small denticulations on lateral carina, lateral lobes compact, curving progressively to the humeral sinus, tegmen lanceolate, fore coxae armed with a spine, tympanic organs exposed in the exterior side and conchate in the interior side, meso- and metasternum with lateral lobes rounded or acuminate, tenth tergite without modification, male cerci simple and armed with apical spine. Females with ovipositor as long as a third of the length of the hind femora, curving sharply upwards, valves with crenulate margins, upper valve with cuticular invaginations from the base to the apex (variable character). Among these characters, only small denticulations on the lateral carina are absent in some species (e.g.,
Plangiopsis adeps
), thus we could remove this character from those belonging to the tribe. Presently only the genera
Plangiopsis
Karsch, 1889
(
Figs. 5a–5d
) and
Plangiola
Bolívar, 1906
(
Fig. 6d
) are listed within the tribe
Plangiopsidini
.
Plangiola
is a little different, having eyes more elongate than in the species of
Plangiopsis
.
Another character that has not been previously considered is the shape of the fastigium of the vertex, which is a little raised, with a rather wide space between the antennae, different from the tribe
Holochlorini
Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1878
, where the fastigium of the vertex is raised, narrow, and the space between the antennae is very small (e.g., genera
Holochlora
,
Arantia
,
Dapanera
, etc.) (
Figs. 7a–7d
). The fastigium of the vertex in the species of the tribe
Plangiopsidini
shows clearly two lateral dimples, not so evident in the species belonging to the tribe
Holochlorini
(
Figs. 5a–5d
,
6a–6d
,
7a–7d
).
When Sĵstedt (1902) described the genus
Bongeia
(
type
species:
B. puncticollis
from
Cameroon
), he wrote that it is most closely related to the genus
Tapeina
Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1878
. Because the genus
Tapeina
Lepeletier & Audinet-Serville
in Latreille, 1828 already existed for a neotropical
Cerambycidae,
Bolívar (1906)
renamed it as
Tapiena
and described
Tapiena minor
from
Ghana
(West Africa), the only African species for this genus. The genus
Tapiena
is an east Asian-Indonesian genus belonging to the tribe
Holochlorini
, with only one African species; actually the genus is heterogeneous, but the fastigium of the
type
species,
T. acutangula
(
Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1878
)
, is narrow, like in the other
Holochlorini
. The African species,
T. minor
, recently again recorded from
Ghana
by
Naskrecki (2008)
, differs in this character from
T. acutangula
, with its fastigium wide between the antennae (
Fig. 6c
), much like that of other genera included in the tribe
Plangiopsidini
. This difference leaves little doubt that
Tapiena minor
does not actually belong to the tribe
Holochlorini
, but instead to the tribe
Plangiopsidini
, with which it shares the other characters of the tribe. Consequently,
T. minor
does not belong to the genus
Tapiena
, but to an undescribed genus, described below as
Afrotapiena
n. gen.
Therefore, the genus
Tapiena
is definitively excluded from Africa, distributed only in
east Asia
and
Indonesia
.
Concerning the genus
Bongeia
(
type
species
B. puncticollis
; see
Fig. 6a
), it was placed within Psyrae (presently tribe
Holochlorini
), like
Tapiena
, but also in this case the fastigium, as well as other characters, are more similar to those of the other genera included in the tribe
Plangiopsidini
. Furthermore, the genus
Itokiia
Sj
̂stedt, 1902 (
type
species:
I. silvarum
Sj
̂stedt, 1902; see
Fig. 6d
), was also included within Psyrae (
Holochlorini
), but its characters, including the fastigium of the vertex, suggests it also belongs to the tribe
Plangiopsidini
.
Thus, the characters of the tribe
Plangiopsidini
Cadeña-Castaneda, 2015
should be: face oval, eyes subcircular, rounded or elongate, anterior margin of pronotum incurved, posterior margin rounded, pronotal disc flat with or without small denticulations on lateral carina, lateral lobes compact, curving progressively to the humeral sinus, higher than long or as high as long, tegmen lanceolate, second pair of wings longer than tegmina, speculum on right tegmen present or absent, fore coxae armed with a spine, conchate tympana in inner side, open in the outer side, tenth tergite without modification, male cerci simple with or without apical spine, styli present. Ovipositor gently upcurved or curving sharply upwards.
FIGURE 5.
Frontal view of the head of
Plangiopsis nouabalensis
n. sp.
(a),
P. foraminata
Karsch, 1892
(b),
P. adeps
Karsch, 1896
(c) and
P. semiconchata
Karsch, 1889
(d), belonging to the tribe
Plangiopsidini
Cadeña-Castaneda, 2015
. Arrows indicate the lateral dimples on the fastigium of vertex.
The following genera therefore are considered to belong to the tribe
Plangiopsidini
:
Plangiopsis
(four species:
P. semiconchata
Karsch, 1889
,
P. foraminata
Karsch, 1892
,
P. adeps
Karsch, 1896
,
P. nouabalensis
n. sp.
),
Plangiola
(only one species:
P. herbacea
),
Bongeia
(two species:
B. puncticollis
,
B. brevicauda
Ebner, 1943
),
Itokiia
(only one species:
I. silvarum
) and
Afrotapiena
n. gen.
(only one species:
A. minor
) (see
Figs. 5a–5d
,
6a–6d
,
8a–8d
,
9a–9c
,
10a–10f
,
11a–11f
).