Discotettigini Hancock, 1907

Skejo, Josip, Pushkar, Taras I., Kasalo, Niko, Pavlović, Marko, Deranja, Maks, Adžić, Karmela, Tan, Ming Kai, Rebrina, Fran, Muhammad, Amira Aqilah, Abdullah, Nurul Ashikin, Japir, Razy, Chung, Arthur Y. C. & Tumbrinck, Josef, 2022, Spiky pygmy devils: revision of the genus Discotettix (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae) and synonymy of Discotettiginae with Scelimeninae, Zootaxa 5217 (1), pp. 1-64 : 10

Tribe Discotettigini Hancock, 1907 stat. resurr.

Discotettigiae: Hancock 1907a: 5; 1907b: 213; Willemse 1930: 4, 7; Günther 1938: 301.

Discotettigini : Kevan 1966: 380.

Discotettiginae : Steinmann 1970: 216; Storozhenko 2013: 158; Tumbrinck 2014: 349.

Discotettinae: Otte 1997: 32; Mahmood et al. 2007: 1275.

Discotettigidae: Liang & Zheng 1998: 23; Zheng 2005: 15; Deng et al. 2007: 400.

Type genus: Discotettix Costa, 1864 .

Differential diagnosis. The tribe Discotettigini is a sister tribe to Scelimenini ; their representatives share many apomorphies inherited from the common ancestor. The main difference is the shape of the pronotum (elongated, flat, and hydrodynamic in Scelimenini ; and robust, wrinkled, and cryptic in Discotettigini ; Rebrina et al. in preparation), as well as the shape of the fore and mid femora (elongated in Scelimenini , short and toothed in Discotettigini ), and the shape of the hind tibia and tarsi (widened into a paddle in Scelimenini , while of regular shape in Discotettigini ). Scelimenini members have shorter projections of the pronotal disc in comparison to Discotettigini members. Discotettigini are mostly corticolous, and Scelimenini members are mostly amphibious grasshoppers (e.g., Muhammad et al. 2018).

Description. Head. Antenna with 11–15 antennomeres, filiform or with widened preapical segments ( Fig. 1 ). Frontal costa visible above the bifurcation; the bifurcation and the lateral ocelli placed low, between the compound eyes, in line with the lower margin or visibly below the compound eye; the antennal groove located below the lower margins of the compound eyes; lateral carinae of the vertex more or less elevated; anterior margin of the vertex truncated, slightly indrawn from the level of the outer margin of the compound eyes; fossula present; medial carina of the vertex visible in the upper third cephalad ( Fig. 5C ).

Pronotum. Prozonal, extralateral, median, humeral and lateral carinae present; interhumeral carinae present, but sometimes not visible because of the pronotal projections in their place. Pronotum strongly granulated and wrinkled, armed with numerous strong projections (FM, FL, PM, MM1, MM2, MML1, MML2, and ML) that can be of different shapes and sizes: low, high, and wart-like or high triangular, saw-like, or spine-like protuberances. Paranota triangular, laterally projected, usually bearing strong VL projection, sometimes without a spine ( Figs 2 , 5A, B ).

Legs. Dorsal and ventral margins of all the legs with small, medium-sized, or large teeth. Tibiae rectangular in cross-section, not widened into the paddles. The dorsal margin of the fore and mid femora carinated. Hind tarsi not widened into a paddle ( Fig. 29B ).

Composition and distribution. The tribe gathers corticolous Scelimeninae genera with an undulated pronotum, and without widened hind tibiae. Altogether, 10 genera and 68 species are herewith assigned to this tribe, and these are Austrohancockia (19 species in PR China, China, and Taiwan), Bidentatettix (2 species in PR China), Disconius gen. n. (1 species in Borneo) Discotettix (7 species in Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo, Mindanao, Aru), Eufalconius (1 species in Peninsular Malaysia), Gavialidium (2 species in Sri Lanka and Southern India), Gibbotettix (13 species in PR China), Kraengia (1 species in Sulawesi), Paragavialidium (14 species in PR China), and Tegotettix (8 species in Indochina, Borneo, Philippines, Sulawesi, New Guinea) ( Muhammad et al. 2018, this study).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Discotettix belzebuth (Serville, 1838), morphology of antennae. The first segment is scapus, the second is pedicel, and the rest are flagellum antennomeres. Drawing by Josip Skejo after the figure in Kuřavova et al. (2017). Scale bar = 1 mm.

FIGURE 2. Pronotum projections of Discotettix sumatrensis Skejo, Pushkar et Tumbrinck sp. n. numbered and named according to the proposed terminology: FL1—first frontolateral, FL2—second frontolateral, FL3—third frontolateral, FM— frontomedial, ML—metalateral, MM1—first metamedial, MM2—second metamedial, MM3—third metamedial, MM4—fourth metamedial, MML1—first metamediolateral, MML2—second metamediolateral, MML3—third metamediolateral, MML4— fourth metamediolateral, MML5—fifth metamediolateral, PL1—first prolateral, PL2—second prolateral, PM—promedial, PML1—first promediolateral, PML2—second promediolateral, and VL—ventrolateral.

FIGURE 5. Discotettix belzebuth (Serville, 1838). A. dorsolateral view; B. dorsal view; C. frontal view. Photographs by Melvin Yeo. Reproduced with the author’s permission. Scale bar = 2 mm.

FIGURE 29. Discotettix kirscheyi Skejo, Pushkar, Tumbrinck et Tan sp. n. in a natural habitat near Tawau Hills Park in Sabah, Malaysia, Borneo. A. Dorsolateral habitus; B. head and pronotum detail. Photograph by Aglaia Bouma. Reproduced with the author’s permission.