Meschia woodwardi Scudder

(Figs. 13–21)

Meschia woodwardi Scudder 1957b: 25 –28.

Material examined: Paratype male, Carnarvon Gorge, South Queensland, 29.v.1954, T.E. Woodward, QM.

Redescription. The following are additions to the original description by Scudder (1957b):

Colouration: Head with antennifers ventrally paler and smoother than laterally and dorsally; tip of labium fuscous; legs with bases of tibiae with small dark spot, tibia lacking fuscous bands or rings; pronotal posterior margin with 6 (not 4 as noted in original description) vague irregular fuscous or dark spots or patches; dark or dark brown markings on corium and clavus faint or less distinct than those mentioned in original description. Hemelytron with dark brown stripe laterally (Fig. 13).

Structure:Body: Length including wings 4.23; maximum width 1.65.

Head (Figs. 13, 14): Length 0.71; width across eyes 1.35; interocular space 0.88; interocellar space 0.46; eyeocellar space 0.18; eye length 0.32; eye width 0.27. Labium thin tube-like, extending to abdominal segment VI, length of segments: I 0.55; II 0.92; III 0.62; IV 0.73. Labrum length 0.16. Antennae (Fig. 15) with 1st segment slightly more incrassate than uniformly thickened 2nd and 3rd segments, 4th segment slightly fusiform; length of segments: I 0.25; II 0.80; III 0.50; IV 0.67.

Thorax: Pronotum (Fig. 14), median length 0.98; width at posterior margin 1.70. Scutellum (Fig. 13) length 0.70; width 1.0 3. Length of hemelytra 2.71; length of corium 1.70; claval commissure 0.19.

Abdomen: Tergum almost uniformly coloured fuscous (Fig. 16); posterolateral areas of each connexivum fuscous; other areas slightly lighter; connexival areas particularly outer margin with short setae borne on fine bases; tergum III with a few, IV and V with several, large coarse irregularly sized punctures medially as in Fig. 16.

Male genitalia: Pygophore as in Fig. 18. Paramere sickle-shaped (Fig. 19). Aedeagus (Figs. 20, 21), with a pair of spatulate membranous lobes near apical end of conjunctiva.

Other details as in Meschia pugnax .

Distribution. Queensland.

Notes. As discussed by Scudder (1957b), this species differs from the type species M. pugnax Distant in lacking a Y-shaped fuscous fascia on head and pronotum, and from the only other previously described species of the genus, M. quadrimaculata, by the 6 vague irregular fuscous or dark spots or patches on the pronotal posterior margin, as well as fuscous spots on the hemelytra.