Notuchus Fennah, 1969

Hoch, Hannelore, Asche, Manfred, Burwell, Chris, Monteith, Geoff M. & Wessel, Andreas, 2006, Morphological alteration in response to endogeic habitat and ant association in two new planthopper species from New Caledonia (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Fulgoromorpha: Delphacidae), Journal of Natural History 40 (32 - 34), pp. 1867-1886 : 1870

Notuchus Fennah, 1969

Notuchus Fennah 1969, p 32 . Type species: Notuchus risioides Fennah 1969, p 32 ( New Caledonia), by original designation.

The genus Notuchus was previously known from three species from northern Queensland, Australia ( N. kurandae Donaldson, 1979 , N. oresebios Donaldson, 1988 , and N. rotundifacies Donaldson, 1979 ), two species from Lord Howe Island ( N. monticola Fennah, 1972 and N. howensis Donaldson, 1987 ), and two species from New Caledonia ( N. risioides Fennah, 1969 and N. larvalis Fennah, 1980 ). All Notuchus species (except N. larvalis and the two new species described below) are epigeic but display morphological characters, such as depressed body shape and brachyptery ( Donaldson 1979, 1987, 1988; Fennah 1969) that are indicative of an adaptation to a cryptic way of life, in habitats such as leaf litter. Most specimens have been collected by berlese extraction of leaf litter samples from rainforest vegetation. The species accommodated in Notuchus may or may not form a monophyletic group; no characters shared by Notuchus species have yet been recognized as probable synapomorphies. A cladistic analysis of Notuchus and related ugyopine delphacids, especially of the Ugyops annulipes Stål-group, would be necessary to infer the evolutionary history of the taxa concerned but is beyond the scope of the present work.