First records of Croatian and Serbian Tetrigidae (Orthoptera: Caelifera) with description of a new subspecies of Tetrix transsylvanica (Bazyluk & Kis, 1960)
Author
Skejo, Josip
Author
Rebrina, Fran
Author
Buzzetti, Filippo Maria
Author
Ivković, Slobodan
Author
Rašić, Alan
Author
Tvrtković, Nikola
text
Zootaxa
2014
3856
3
419
432
journal article
10.11646/zootaxa.3856.3.7
d25499e3-ed2a-4e21-aec0-a563b449bfb7
1175-5326
224516
AA7BDCCE-7DF5-4775-826C-68B22726D402
Genus
Uvarovitettix
Bazyluk & Kis, 1960
Species typica.:
Mesotettix (Uvarovitettix) transsylvanicus
Bazyluk & Kis, 1960
by original designation according to article 68.2. of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 1999).
FIGURE 4.
Uvarovitettix nodulosus
(Fieber, 1853)
from Portugal (photo: Paulo Lemos).
Species:
The genus is represented by four species (
Devriese, 2014
):
U. nodulosus
(Fieber, 1853)
in
Portugal
(
Fig. 4
), SW
Spain
and North Africa (
Devriese, 1996
);
U. transsylvanicus
(
Bazyluk & Kis, 1960
)
in
Slovenia
,
Croatia
and
Romania
(discussed below),
U. pseudodepressus
Ingrisch,
2006
in
Nepal
(Bheri province) (
Ingrisch, 2006
) and
U. gibberosus
(
Wang & Zheng, 1993
)
in East
China
(Anhui) (
Wang & Zheng, 1993
).
Generic diagnosis.
Paranota with only one lobe, tegmenula and alae rudimentary, hind femora knees with deep incision (
Devriese, 1996
).
Taxonomy and comments.
U. nodulosus
,
and
U. transsylvanicus
fit the generic diagnosis, but
U. pseudodepressus
and
U. gibberosus
do not.
Ingrisch (2006)
has shown that
U. pseudodepressus
is most similar to
Tetrix serrifemoralis
Zheng, 1998
and
Depressotetrix depressa
(Brisout de Barneville, 1848), the latter of which has been moved several times between the genera
Tetrix
Latreille, 1802
,
Dasyleurotettix
Rehn, 1904
,
Depressotetrix
Karaman, 1960
and
Uvarovitettix
Bazyluk & Kis, 1960
, but according to molecular studies it belongs to the genus
Tetrix
(Hochkirch, unpublished).
U. pseudodepressus
has two paranotal lobes, fully developed tegmenula and long alae. Its integument is more similar to
D. depressa
and
T. serrifemoralis
than to
U. nodulosus
and
U. transsylvanicus
.
Thus, we propose two new combinations supported by morphological (here presented) and molecular (Hochkirch, unpublished) data:
Tetrix pseudodepressa
(
Ingrisch, 2006
)
comb. nov
and
Tetrix depressa
comb. nov
.
, which means that
Depressotetrix
Karaman, 1960
syn. nov.
is synonym of
Tetrix
Latreille, 1802
.
Differential diagnosis of the genus
Depressotetrix
syn. nov
.
as presented in the original description (
Karaman, 1960
) (where
Depressotetrix
syn. nov
.
is described as monotypic subgenus of
Tetrix
). 1) The vertex is two times wider than a compound eye and is weakly prominent. 2) The median keel of the pronotum is very elevated in the anterior part of the pronotum and then abruptly falling down forming depression in the discus of the pronotum (from this character originates the generic name and epitheton). 3) The mid femora are narrower than visible part of a tegmen (= elytron) or as the same width as a tegmen. 4) Margins of all femora are wavy (
Karaman, 1960
). All these characters are also found in the genus
Tetrix
. 1) The vertex is ± two times wider than compound eye in a lot of species of the genus (e.g.
T. bipunctata
,
T. subulata
,
T. undulata
,
T. sierrana
Rehn & Grant, 1956,
T. ornata
(Say, 1824))
, 2) there are other
Tetrix
species with elevated median keel of the pronotum (e.g. slightly elevated median keel in
T. bolivari
that also forms a weak depression,
T. arcunotus
Ingrisch, 2001
with pronotum very similar to that of
T. depressa
comb. nov
.
, also
T. ruyuanensis
Liang, 1998
), 3) in many species the mid femur is as narrow as the visible part of a tegmen or narrower (e.g.
T. hururanus
Ingrisch, 2001
,
T. ornata
,
T. undulata
) and 4) waviness of the femoral margins in the genus
Tetrix
can occur in a lot of combinations and is not reliable diagnostic character (e.g. in
T. tuerki
ventral margins of the fore and the mid femora are very wavy,
T. bolivari
usually has slightly wavy dorsal margins of the fore an the mid femora,
T. arenosa
Burmeister, 1838
has slightly wavy margins of all the femora). From all these observations it is evident that the differential characters of the genus
Depressotetrix
syn. nov
.
fit within the variability of the genus
Tetrix
and that it is legitimate to synonymize it with the genus
Tetrix
.
Further taxonomic studies are necessary, including molecular methods, since the morphology of the subfamily
Tetriginae
can be very tricky and misleading (
Fang
et al.,
2010
). The generic assignments are still preliminary for many
Tetrix
species.
U. gibberosus
has small developed wings (
Wang & Zheng, 1993
) and thus does not fit the generic diagnosis of
Uvarovitettix
. Also, it seems unlikely that two flightless species of the same genus have such a disjunct distribution, being separated by ca.
4800 km
. Furthermore, other genera with only one paranotal lobe and small wings (e.g.
Formosatettix
,
Formosatettixoides
) exist in
China
(
Liang & Zheng, 1998
) and
U. gibberosus
might either be a member of one of these genera, or it may even belong to a new East Asian genus. We thus denote
U. gibberosus
(
Wang & Zheng, 1993
)
incertae sedis
.
Paratettix tuberculata
(
Zheng & Jiang, 1997
)
was described within the genus
Mishtshenkotetrix
Harz, 1973
(
Zheng & Jiang, 1997
)
. The genus
Mishtshenkotetrix
Harz, 1973
was synonymized with the genus
Paratettix
Bolívar, 1887
by
Devriese (1996)
because the
type
specimens of
M. brachyptera
(Lucas & Brisout de Barneville, 1849) - the
lectotype
of the
type
species of the genus
Mishtshenkotetrix
was found to be a nymph of
Paratettix meridionalis
(Rambur, 1838)
. Then,
M. tuberculata
automatically became member of the genus
Paratettix
. However, this species does not fit the diagnosis of the genus
Paratettix
at all. Two main differential characters of the genus
Paratettix
are 1) vertex narrower than one of the compound eyes or equally wide, 2) the prozona of the pronotum very short and the median carina ends just before frontal margin of the pronotum.
P. tuberculata
has 1) the vertex significantly wider than one of the compound eyes (visible from fig. 1 from
Zheng & Jiang, 1997
) and 2) a relatively long prozona of the pronotum with uninterrupted, not obliterated median carina (visible from figs. 1, 2 from
Zheng & Jiang, 1997
). Thus, the species definitely does not belong to the genus
Paratettix
. The species has been suggested to be related to
Tetrix transsylvanica
comb. nov.
by
Zheng & Jiang (1997)
, what we cannot test, but since it is definitely not a member of
Paratettix
we propose new combination,
Tetrix tuberculata
comb. nov
.
It is clear that the species is more related to the genus
Tetrix
than to
Paratettix
, but its placement within the genus
Tetrix
is also uncertain (
incertae sedis)
and its taxonomic position needs to be reviewed in further studies.