Flata Fabricius, 1798

Peng, Ling-Fei, Fletcher, Murray J. & Zhang, Ya-Lin, 2012, Review of the Oriental planthopper genus Flata Fabricius (Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea: Flatidae) with the description of five new species, Zootaxa 3399, pp. 1-22 : 2

Genus Flata Fabricius, 1798

Flata Fabricius, 1798: 511

Type species: Poeciloptera stellaris Walker, 1851 , (replacement name for Cicada ocellata Fabricius, 1775 , preoccupied), designated by Spinola, 1839: 421

Morphology. Size medium to large, from 12 mm to 25 mm in length.

Head: Head narrower than pronotum, wider than long; anterior margin convex in dorsal view; lateral margins raised moderately; intergenal carina convex or angled; vertex a narrow ledge between carina and anterior margin of pronotum; frons convex, median carina elongate, united dorsally with intergenal carina, lateral margins slightly raised. Antennae short; segment I and II tubular; segment II longer than segment I. Ocelli present.

Thorax: Pronotum and mesonotum moderately humped. Pronotum disc bluntly triangular; anterior margin convex; median carina strongly raised; flanked with ridged postocular eminence. Mesonotum large, shield-like; with three longitudinal carinae. Tegmina subtriangular; costal margin elongated convex; apical margin truncate or convex; vein Sc, R, M arising from the upper point of the basal cell; Cu arising from the lower side of the basal cell; irregular array of cross veins apically, usually weakly aligned to form one subapical line; apex of clavus without Y-stem of anal veins. Metatibia bearing two lateral spines.

Distribution. Oriental Region; Russia; Africa; Papua New Guinea.

Remarks. There are seven species and one variety listed in Metcalf’s catalogue, artemisiae Becker , ferrugata Fabricius , lyncea Fabricius , minuta Fabricius, rostrata Montrouzier , stellaris Walker , tripunctata Fabricius and stellaris var. flavoguttata Melichar. The species F. m i n u t a was moved to the genus Siphanta Stål by Fletcher (1985). The genus was redefined and restricted to the Oriental Region by Medler (1996a). The species artemisiae ( Russia) , rostrata ( Papua New Guinea) and tripunctata (Africa) are unknown to the current authors and probably don’t belong to Flata . They are listed with their current combination below but their morphological characters need to be checked to determine their true generic affinities. They are not included in the key to species below. The original description of the Indian species lyncea from Fabricius is quite simple and without any figures, so it’s “an uncertain species of which no exact information” ( Distant, 1906), so is listed as incertae sedis at the end. The species Cryptoflata flavoguttata was treated as a synonym of Flata ocellata by Distant (1906), but it was changed to a variety of Flata stellaris in Metcalf’s catalogue, Medler (2006) reviewed this species and treated Cryptoflata flavoguttata as a synonym of Flata stellaris again.

The genus Flata is widespread in the Oriental Region and there are two species recorded from China, F. ferrugata and F. guttularis . In particular, F. guttularis was recorded as widespread in Guangdong, Taiwan and the north of China, but from the specimens we have examined, F. guttularis is a complex of similar species only distinguished by characters of the male genitalia. Specimens from different provinces have a strong superficial resemblance to each other but such specimens can be distinguished by the male genitalia. Medler (1990) illustrated the male genitalia of the holotype of F. guttularis which is from Sarawak, Malaysia.