Bolivaritettix Günther, 1939

Storozhenko, Sergey Yu., 2018, Pygmy grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae) of Vietnam: the genus Bolivaritettix Günther, 1939, Zootaxa 4374 (4), pp. 497-523 : 498

Genus Bolivaritettix Günther, 1939

Bolivaritettix Günther, 1939: 57 .

Bolivaritettix: Shishodia, 1991: 77 ; Blackith, 1992: 7; Otte, 1997: 38; Liang & Zheng, 1998: 116; Zheng et al., 2003: 481; Zheng, 2005: 178; Deng et al., 2009: 279; Deng et al., 2010: 44 ; Deng et al., 2015: 165 .

Type species: Mazarredia sculpta Bolívar, 1887 , by original designation.

Differential diagnosis. The genus Bolivaritettix belongs to subfamily Metrodorinae because of the lower side of lateral lobes of the pronotum directed outwards and obliquely truncated or short triangular, as well as the first and third tarsal segments of the hind legs being almost equal in length. The genus Bolivaritettix is similar to the genera Hyboella Hancock, 1915 and Pseudoxistrella Liang, 1991 , which are characterized by the eyes not elevated above the pronotum (in lateral view). Bolivaritettix differs from Hyboella by straight or moderate raised in profile median carina of pronotum (in Hyboella , the median carina strongly arched in the anterior part and very low and almost straight in the posterior part of pronotum). The genus Pseudoxistrella is characterized by distinctly widened first tarsal segments of fore legs and by almost completely fused lateral carinae of the frontal ridge (in Bolivaritettix , the first tarsal segments are unmodified and frontal ridge with distinctly separated lateral carinae). Bolivaritettix is also similar to the genera Macromotettix Günther, 1939 and Macromotettixoides Zheng, Wei et Jiang, 2005 in the shape of body, but differs from both in short infrascapular area, which never reaches the mid portion of pronotum (in Macromotettix and Macromotettixoides , the infrascapular area reaching the middle or apical quarter of pronotum). According to species descriptions and addenda to the genus recently published ( Deng et al., 2009, 2010, 2015), the genus Bolivaritettix is most similar to the genus Mazarredia Bolívar, 1887 in the majority of taxonomically important characters except the position of compound eyes (in Mazarredia eyes are strongly elevated above the pronotum in profile, while in Bolivaritettix eyes not exserted above pronotum). However, there are many species within those two genera that are similar in morphology. Thus, the revision of Bolivaritettix , Mazarredia and related genera of Metrodorinae is needed, as well as the ecological and molecular studies.

Composition. Currently, the genus consists of 97 species distributed in Pakistan, India, Nepal, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines (Cigliano et al., 2017). Ten species of the genus Bolivaritettix are found in Vietnam, three of which are firstly recorded from this country and five new species are described here.

Remarks. All descriptions and illustrations of the species are given here based on the Vietnamese specimens only.