Bhatia Distant

Murthy, Shankara, 2009, Two new species of the genus Bhatia (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) from south India with new locality records of other species, Zootaxa 2245, pp. 47-53 : 47-48

Genus Bhatia Distant

Bhatia Distant, 1908: 357 ; Zhang & Webb, 1996: 12.

Type species: Eutettix olivacea Melichar , by original designation.

Greenish ochraceous to brown, with dark brown irregular markings on head and thorax. Forewing smoky, with brown spots on apices of claval veins and clavus.

Head wider than pronotum, fore margin either transversely striate or wrinkled. Vertex either longer medially than next to eyes or shorter, with or without median transverse impression, flat or declivous anteriorly, disc medially longitudinally striate, striae oblique laterally. Face including eyes wider than long, either flat or slightly convex in profile. Clypellus with concave lateral margins, broader at apex than at base, lorum wider than clypellus. Ocelli placed 2–3 times own diameter away from adjacent eye. Antennae more than half body length, pedicel dark brown, arising slightly above or below mid height of eye. Pronotum slightly to strongly convex, shorter than scutellum, with short carinate lateral margins, disc transversely striate. Scutellum transversely striate caudad of transverse sulcus. Forewing with claval veins separate, one cross vein between outer claval vein and claval suture, three subapical and four apical cells, inner subapical cell open behind. Fore tibiae rounded or slightly flattened or scored dorsally rather than rounded; femora rather flattened. Fore tibia with 1+4 setal formula. Hind femoral spinulation 2+2+1, inner seta of second group very slender compared to outer one; hind tibial spinulation R1 22±2 (maximum 28), R2 11±1, R3 17±2; hind basitarsus with 3–4 platellae on apical transverse row.

Caudal lobe of male pygophore either truncate or conically rounded, sometimes with internal posterior ledge. Subgenital plate without macrosetae, distally prolonged and narrowed. Connective Y-shaped with stem bilobed basally, not angled at mid length in lateral view. Aedeagus with laterobasal or ventral processes, gonopore apical.

Remarks: Zhang & Webb (1996) noted that several groups of Bhatia species may be diagnosed by combinations of distinctive morphological characters. The four species (including the two new species described here) known from the Indian subcontinent represent three such groups: 1) both B. olivacea and B. distanti have an oblique ledge on the male pygophore lobe, vertex medially longer than next to eyes with transverse impression, ocelli separated from adjacent eye by two times their own diameter, hind basitarsus with 3 platellae; 2) B. radhamaniae sp. nov. although resembling B. distanti externally, lacks the ledge on the male pygophore, and the aedeagal shaft has the latero-basal processes very similar to those found in Divus Distant but they arise from the dorsal apodeme away from the base of the shaft; the head, ocelli and platellae resemble those of the previous group; 3) B. serrata sp. nov. has the vertex anteriorly declivous, the face and pronotum strongly convex in profile, the ocelli three times their own diameter distant from the adjacent eye, and the hind basitarsus with four platellae.