Fissuleon Machado, 2020

Machado, Renato Jose Pires & Oswald, John David, 2020, Morphological phylogeny and taxonomic revision of the former antlion subtribe Periclystina (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae: Dendroleontinae), Zootaxa 4796 (1), pp. 1-322 : 45

Fissuleon Machado , new genus

http://zoobank.org/NomenclaturalActs/ 74E393FC-9EFF-43AD-975F-53FE1767CA48

Type species. Glenoleon nigristriatus New, 1985 , by present designation. Nomenclatural gender: masculine.

Diagnosis. Ocular setae present; palpimacula opening slit-like; forewing posterior area wider than prefork area; tibial spurs extending to T2 apex; female ectoproct and lateral gonapophyses with cavisetae; 9 th tergite membranous digitiform process absent.

Description. Head: Vertex raised, set with short setae. Ocular setae elongate. Antennae clubbed and elongate; distance between antennae about same size of scape width, flagellomeres almost as long as wide at base, apical ones much wider than long, all segments set with short black setae. Palpimacula opening as a small longitudinal slit, located medially. Thorax: Pronotum about as long as wide. Miller’s organ absent. Wings: Tip acute. Banksian lines absent. Forewing CuA fork located near RP origin; three presectoral crossveins; costal crossveins simple; posterior area wider than prefork area. Hind wing MP fork located near RP origin; one presectoral crossvein. Male pilula axillaris present. Legs: Femur slightly enlarged, wider than the remaining leg segments. Tibial spurs long, extending to T2 apex. Pretarsal claws slightly shorter than half of T5 length. Sense hair about half of profemur length. Tibia with antennal cleaning setae ventroapically. Male Terminalia: Ectoproct posterior margin rounded in lateral view; gonarcus thin and arched; mediuncus absent or reduced; paramere simple, with tip more sclerotized. Female Terminalia: Ectoproct posterior margin and lateral gonapophyses beset with cavisetae; posterior gonapophyses short and set with long black setae; anterior gonapophyses absent; 9 th tergite without membranous digitiform process; ventromedial plate present.

Distribution ( Fig. 12 ). Australia: NSW, NT, QLD, SA, WA. Widespread across mainland Australia.

Included species (3 spp.). Fissuleon brevigonarcus , F. mouldsorum , F. nigristriatus .

Biology. Unknown.

Etymology. Fissu - (from Latin fissus, slit, fissure, or cut) + - leon (from Greek leon, lion; a traditional ending for antlion genus-group names), in reference to the slit-like shape of the palpimacula opening.

Comments. The genus Fissuleon gen. nov. is created for three species previously described in Glenoleon by New (1985b). They are removed from Glenoleon here because the phylogenetic analysis shows them to form a small clade in Acanthoplectrini . Retaining them in their original genus would render Glenoleon polyphyletic. Additionally, molecular data also support the creation of this new genus ( Machado et al. 2019). The presence of ocular setae, the shape of the forewing posterior area, and the general shape of the male and female terminalic structures, are all characters that place these three species in Acanthoplectrini . Within the tribe these three species can easily be separated by the slit-like palpimacula opening positioned in the medial region of the apical palpomere. For phylogenetic relationships see Fig. 4 .

Figures

FIGURE 4. Strict consensus tree of morphology-based parsimony analysis of species belonging to the former subtribe Periclystina (ingroup, names in black), and outgroups (names in red). Former Glenoleon species are shown on blue branches, former Austrogymnocnemia species on green branches. Numbers above branches are Bremer support values; numbers below branches are bootstrap values (shown where>50%).

FIGURE 12. Distribution of Fissuleon species.