A review of Adelphocoris - Creontiades - Megacoelum complex (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Miridae: Mirini), with descriptions of two new genera and four new species
Author
Chérot, F.
Author
Malipatil, M. B.
text
Zootaxa
2016
4126
2
151
206
journal article
38799
10.11646/zootaxa.4126.2.1
03d7f464-cb2f-45a4-aed3-102a29cb38fc
1175-5326
262772
76ECAACD-405E-48E3-B7DD-1205C2A9C61A
10.
Megacoelum
Fieber, 1858
(
Figures 29–32, 33
)
Megacoelum
Fieber, 1858
: 305
(as new genus) [type-species by monotypy:
Megacoelum infusum
(Herrich-Schaeffer, 1839)
].
Megacoelum
third palearctic species group
sensu
Linnavuori, 1974: 27
.
Diagnosis.
Body sub-oblong, slightly convex, total length 5–8, uniformly stramineous or orange brown, sometimes with fine red or brown stripes or red brown areas (
Figs 29–33
). Head regularly sloping anteriorly, in profile frons not protruding and devoid of a notch above tylus, tylus regularly curved (
Linnavuori 1974a
,
b
); labium reaching middle or hind coxae; first antennal segment weakly club-like, elongate and curved; pronotum dorsally almost glabrous, with a dull, narrow collar and a pair of stiff erect setae on anterior corners; scutellum relatively flat, slightly tumid; pilosity of metafemora erect and shorter than width of femora; tibial spines dark brown to black; hemelytra slightly reflective, frequently translucent, their punctation double, one very reduced, dense, narrow and shallow, the second shallow but larger, their pilosity, when present, reduced, short, sparse, simple, recumbent, sometimes hemelytra almost glabrous; veins raised; secondary gonopore complete, devoid of sclerite, hairs or pilose plate, phallus devoid of comb or phallic support, always with several fields of denticles and an apical true spiculum, generally pointed, sometimes hooked. Parieto-vaginal rings reduced, narrow, totally separated, devoid of a pair of anterior projections; dorso-labiate plate reduced, thin and elongate. Dorsal process of posterior wall absent, median process absent, interramal sclerites (A-structures) and interramal lobes (E-structures) developed.
Included species.
M. formosanum
Poppius, 1915
*,
M. infusum
Herrich-Schaeffer, 1837
*,
M. myrti
Linnavuori, 1965
,
M. oculare
Wagner, 1957
*,
M. pellucens
Puton, 1881
,
M. rubrolineatum
Linnavuori, 1975
*,
M. salsolae
Linnavuori, 1986
*,
M. sordidum
Reuter, 1904
*,
M. tricolor
Wagner, 1958
,
M. zollikoferiae
(Lindberg, 1953)
*.
Distribution.
Canary Islands,
China
(Guandong, Guangxi, Hainan, Yunnan), Europe,
Egypt
,
Iran
,
Israel
,
Saudi Arabia
,
Syria
,
Sudan
,
Turkey
,
Yemen
.
Host plants.
Asteraceae, Betulaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Fabaceae, Fagaceae, Myrtaceae, Polygonaceae, Rosaceae, Tamaricaceae.
Discussion.
Linnavuori (1974b)
divided the west Palearctic species of the genus
Megacoelum
into three species-groups. Some species presently classified in
Megacoelum
should be actually included in another genus of the complex. According to our new diagnosis of the genus, true
Megacoelum
are the species included by Linnavuori in his group three.
M. pelluscens
was accommodated in its own species-group (group one) by Linnavuori (
op
.
cit
.) on the basis of the length and the coloration of its antenna. However, the species shares other character states with true
Megacoelum
. Consequently, we tentatively include it in this genus.
M. superbum
Linnavuori, 1975
, from
Sudan
, could belong to true
Megacoelum
, but is unknown to us, was described on females alone and should be analysed more in details to confirm its generic placement, like several Afrotropical species described by
Poppius (1912)
.
M. brevirostre
Reuter, 1879
from Near East and Middle Asia is unusual by its habitus, coloration and vesical structure (particularly the presence of a phallic support and a comb). This species, known to us just by literature, should be reclassified in another genus, maybe in the genus
Reuterista
Kirkaldy, 1904. The other west Palearctic species of
Megacoelum
were classified by
Linnavuori (1974b)
in his group two. We suggest they constitute a separate new genus—
Pseudomegacoelum
Chérot & Malipatil
n. gen.
—described below. According to the description of its phallus by
Pathak (1969: 55, pl. V,
Fig. 3
)
, “
M.
”
esmedorae
Ballard, 1927, described from
India
(Coimbatore), should be placed in another genus. Some still undescribed Australian species have similar phallus. Finally, several Indian and other Oriental species originally described as
Megacoelum
are transferred in this publication to genera
Orientomiris
Yasunaga, 1997
,
Poppiocapsidea
Yasunaga, 1998
and
Waucoris
Carvalho, 1987
.