Mesonemoura membranosa Du & Zhou

Du, Yu-Zhou, Wang, Zhi-Jie & Zhou, Pei, 2007, Two new species of the genus Mesonemoura and redescription of M. spiroglagellate (Plecoptera: Nemouridae) from China, Zootaxa 1495, pp. 47-52 : 49-50

Mesonemoura membranosa Du & Zhou , sp. nov.

( Fig. 9–15 )

Adult habitus. Head equal in width to pronotum; wings subhyaline to brown. Cervical gills single, short and oval, each one is located outside of lateral cervical sclerite. Metathoracic femora with distinct pattern, distally dark, with rest of the legs pale.

Male. Forewing length 9.6 mm, hind wing length 8.5 mm. Tergum 9 slightly sclerotized, posteromesal margin concave, forming a small notch, both sides of notch slightly protruding past the posterior edge of tergum, each with sclerotized spines around the apex. Tergum 10 slightly sclerotized, forming a large flat area anterior to base of epiproct. Cercus longer than wide. Hypoproct broad at base, tapering towards apex, covering part of inner lobes of paraprocts; vesicle long, 3X width. Paraprocts divided into 3 mostly membranous lobes; inner lobe small, triangular, slightly sclerotized; median lobe large and broad at base with a small apical portion, bearing many hairs; outer lobe narrow and slightly sclerotized at base, broad and membranous apically, bearing many hairs. Epiproct dorsally a narrow rectangle, recurved; dorsal sclerite, milky-white with little brownish markings, apical portion slightly enlarged and extending over ventral sclerite; ventral sclerite darkly sclerotized, broad at base and becoming narrower toward apex, the apex extended distally to forming a long flagelliform, sclerotized structure; the flagelliform projection inserted into notch of tergum 9, with a single spiral, its length is about 2X length of the epiproct, and with a little notch at the tip; epiproct ventral sclerite without spines.

Female. Unknown.

Type material. Holotype male, Railway Station of Qinling, Shaanxi province, 17 May 1995, Leg. Du Yu- Zhou. Paratype male, same data as the holotype.

Etymology. The name refers to the paraprocts being mostly membranous. The Latin membrana means membranous.

Remarks. This new species is close to Mesonemoura metafiligera (Aubert 1965) in the shape of epiproct and paraproct, but distinctly differ in the strongly sclerotized spines located on the margin of the notch of tergum 9, and the little notch at the tip of the flagelliform peojection.

11 12

Figures

FIGURES 9 – 15. Mesonemoura membranosa, sp. nov. 9. Male terminalia, dorsal; 10. Male terminalia, ventral; 11. Male terminalia, lateral; 12. Male paraproct (left); 13. Male epiproct, dorsal; 14. Male epiproct, ventral; 15. Male epiproct, lateral.