Teleogryllus rohinae Jaiswara & Jain, 2021

Jaiswara, Ranjana, Desutter-Grandcolas, Laure & Jain, Manjari, 2021, Taxonomic revision of Teleogryllus mitratus (Burmeister, 1838) and T. occipitalis (Serville, 1838) in India, withthe description of Teleogryllus rohinae Jaiswara & Jain sp. nov. and a key for Teleogryllus species from India (Orthoptera: Gryllidae), Zootaxa 5016 (1), pp. 81-106 : 91-93

Teleogryllus rohinae Jaiswara & Jain , sp. nov.

Figures 1, 4A–H, 5E, 6D, 7E, 8C, 9D, 10I–L, 11E–F & 12; Table 3

Type locality: India, Kerala, Nileshwar, Bekal Club, 5km from Nileshwar Railway Station.

Type material: Holotype — INDIA: Kerala, Bekal Club, 8km from Nileshwar Railway Station , 1 male ( MJO _ 1177), 7m asl, 12° 16′ 20. 3′′ N 75° 6′ 47.4′′ E, 24.i.2017, R. Jaiswara and M. Jain, ZSI Kolkata.

Allotype — INDIA: Kerala, Bekal Club, 8km from Nileshwar Railway Station , 1 female ( MJO _1169), 7m asl, 12° 16′ 20. 3′′ N 75° 6′ 47. 4′′ E, 24.i.2017, R. Jaiswara and M. Jain, ZSI Kolkata.

Paratypes — INDIA: Kerala, Bekal Club, 12° 16′ 20.3′′ N 75° 6′ 47.4′′ E, 7m asl, 8km from Nileshwar Railway Station , 24.i.2017, 5 male ( MJO _1175–1179) and 5 female ( MJO _1159–1163), collected by R. Jaiswara and M. Jain, thereafter deposited in IISER Mohali .

Distribution: Currently known only from the type locality.

Etymology: This new species is named in honour of Professor Rohini Balakrishnan, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, for introducing RJ and MJ to the cricket model system and in recognition of her significant contribution to the understanding of the behaviour and ecology of Indian crickets. Name in apposition—gender feminine.

Habitat: T. rohinae Jaiswara & Jain sp. nov. was primarily found in Cucurbitaceae plantations and sometimes on open grassland areas having moist soil.

Diagnosis: Very similar to T. occipitalis ( Serville, 1838) in external morphology, but mainly differing in male ( Fig. 10I–K) and female ( Fig. 11E–F) genitalia structures. T. rohinae Jaiswara & Jain , sp. nov. also resembles T. emma ( Ohmachi & Matsuura, 1951) . Still, according to the morphological descriptions of T. emma by Libin et al. (2015), it differs mainly in the male genitalia (female genitalia not known for T. emma ). Male. FW stridulatory apparatus: stridulatory file with 235 to 252 teeth (mean 242, n=3); harp with 4–6 usually (occasionally 3).

Description: In addition to the characters of the genus: medium sized cricket very similar to T. occipitalis . Legs. TIII with 5–6 inner and 6–7 outer sub-apical spurs; basitarsomeres III with 3–4 inner and 5–7 outer spines.

Color. Body, head and pronotum dark brown ( Fig. 3A–B, 5E & 6D). Inner margins of eyes with a thick yellow band ( Fig. 10L), sometimes wide enough to make vertex look yellowish.

Male. FW covering the epiproct fully or slightly longer ( Fig. 5E), HW always longer than abdomen; harp with 3–4 regularly spaced oblique veins with a horizontal middle part (sometimes 1–2 faint veins at the angle of 1 st anal vein) ( Fig. 7E). Stridulatory file with 235 to 252 teeth (mean 242, n=3); teeth on the stridulatory vein as on Fig. 8C. Mirror longer than wide; apical field with 4–5 cell alignments; lateral field with 12–13 veins ( Fig. 7E).

Male genitalia. Pseudepiphallic sclerite rather square-shaped in dorsal view, posterior margin slightly pointed from the middle, vertex rounded and smooth with convex lateral margins and almost at the level of median structure ( Fig. 10I). In lateral view: pseudepiphallic sclerite very similar to T. occipitalis and T. emma ; pseudepiphallic apodeme as wide as its base ( Fig. 10J–K).

Female. Body size slightly bigger than males. FWs overlapping 2/3 rd of its width, length restricted up to 7 th abdominal tergite or extended slightly beyond epiproct; dorsal field with 11 diagonally parallel longitudinal veins; lateral field with 11–13 veins ( Fig. 9D). HWs very long extended beyond the abdomen ( Fig. 6D).

Female genitalia. Copulatory organ sharply tapering anteroposterior and sclerotized posteriorly ( Fig. 11E, F).

Acoustic signal: Calls of T. rohinae consist of two kinds of chirps (long and short) interspersed with each other ( Fig. 12A). The short chirps are 0.402 ± 0.024s while the longer chirps are more variable with a chirp duration of 0.677 ± 0.331s (mean SD). The short chirps consist of 6.35 0.93 syllables, while the longer chirps consist of 19.5 ± 8.6 syllables per chirp (mean ±SD). While T. rohinae Jaiswara & Jain s p. nov. and T. emma have similar call patterns with long and short calls, they vary in the number of syllables per chirp. Further, the dominant frequency for T. emma has been reported to be 3.7 kHz ( Lu et al. 2018), whereas, for T. rohinae , we determined it to be at 5.3 ± 0.16 kHz ( Fig. 12B).