Voconia laosensis, Castillo & Rédei & Weirauch, 2022

Castillo, Stephanie, Rédei, Dávid & Weirauch, Christiane, 2022, Pseudocetherinae (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) revisited: phylogeny and taxonomy of the lobe-headed bugs, European Journal of Taxonomy 788 (1), pp. 1-95 : 56-57

Voconia laosensis sp. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:D92E888A-8436-42C2-8316-881775941725

Figs 1–2 , 7 , 9 , 12 , 14 , 20

Diagnosis

This species is distinguishable by the elongate Cu-An 1 cell (reaching at least half the length of M-Cu cell) and short labial segment I (not surpassing ventral eye margin in lateral view). This species most closely resembles three other Southeast Asian species, V. isosceles sp. nov., V. lasiosoma sp. nov., and V. loki sp. nov., due to the finely granulose head and pronotum, long setation of the body, semicircular pale stripe encircling both ocelli, and the dark pronotum with contrasting pale posterior margin. However, in V. laosensis sp. nov. this pale posterior margin occupies almost the entire posterior pronotal lobe.

Etymology

A proper noun with the Latin adjectival suffix ‘- ensis ’ meaning ‘belonging to’, referring to the country of the type locality, Laos. To be treated as an adjective.

Type material

Holotype LAOS • ♂ (dissected pygophore and aedeagus in vial); Khammouan Prov., Ban Khoun Ngeun; 18.11666 ° N, 104.48333 ° E; elev. 250 m; 4–16 Nov. 2000; E. Jendek and P. Pacholátko leg.; USI: UCR_ENT 00001552 ; NHMW.

Description

Male ( Figs 7 , 9 )

BODY LENGTH. About 9.2 mm; macropterous.

COLORATION. Head: dark brown, maxillary plates and clypeus lighter; postocular region with dark patches adjacent to medial ocellar margin, semicircular pale stripe encircling both ocelli; labium lighter than head, yellow. Thorax: as head; posterior pronotal lobe lighter than anterior lobe; scutellum dark with brown apical spine. Hemelytron (abducted): clavus dark reddish-brown with proximal and distal yellow stripe; corium dark reddish-brown with anteroproximal yellow stripe, posteromedial and distal yellow spots; membrane uniformly dark; pale V-shaped marking along R and M veins. Legs: yellowish-brown. Abdomen: dark brown, laterotergites light brown.

INTEGUMENT AND VESTITURE. Head and pronotum: finely granulose with sparse, long macrosetae interspersed among sparse pubescence; interocular region with two pairs of macrosetae paramedially; antennifer with short lateral setigerous tubercle; morphologically ventral surface of labium with dense, short macrosetae. Thorax: anterolateral angles of pronotal collar with macrosetae; scutellar lateral carinae with long setation. Hemelytron: corium with sparse long setation. Legs: posterior row of protuberances on mid and hind femora with three large and one small spines on distal half. Abdomen: ventral surface pubescent.

STRUCTURE. Head: elongate, about 1.2 times as long as wide; anteocular region about one third of head length, about as long as postocular region (measured to anterior margin of neck); postocular region in dorsal view shorter than eye, lateral margins gently rounded; pedicel about 1.2 times length of head width; maxillary plates ellipsoidal, adjacent to and reaching apex of clypeus; apices of maxillary plates in dorsal view directed straight; clypeus in dorsal view wider than maxillary plates; clypeal apex round, not narrowed; interocular glabrous markings anterolaterally curved, joined at interocular sulcus paramedially; interocular sulcus in dorsal view nearly straight; eye width in dorsal view narrower than synthlipsis; eye reaching ventral head margin in lateral view; ventrolateral swelling of buccula without lateral protrusion that surpasses buccular margin, flat margin; labial segment I in lateral view straight, not reaching posteroventral eye margin; morphologically dorsal surface of labial segment II nearly straight, about 0.6 times length of segment I. Thorax: pronotal collar in dorsal view narrow medially, anterolateral angles short, flared laterally; anterior pronotal lobe about 0.5 times length of posterior pronotal lobe, lateral margins rounded; glabrous markings on pronotum thin and not deeply depressed; median apodeme depression of pronotum shallow, elongated longitudinally; scutellar spine long, raised; anteriad-directed process of prosternum smoothly rounded, without paramedial lobes; anterior margin of stridulitrum not elongated into protuberance. Hemelytron: Cu-An 1 cell elongate, reaching at least half the length of M-Cu cell. Legs: fossula spongiosa present on fore and mid legs. Pygophore ( Fig. 12 ): transverse bridge with rounded posterior margin; posterior region of ventral surface of pygophore in lateral view straight, not swollen; short median apical process upright in lateral view; lateral pygophore margin with protuberance; posterior pygophore margin with clustered macrosetae on protuberance; parameres sinusoidal, apex tapered into squarely rounded tip. Aedeagus ( Fig. 14 ): endosoma almost entirely covered with spicules; apex of dorsal phallothecal sclerite tongueshaped in dorsal view; basal plate extension 4.4 times as long as wide.

Female

Unknown.

Distribution ( Fig. 20 )

This species is only known from the type locality in Laos. This is the only known species of Voconia on mainland Southeast Asia.

Remarks

The pygophore was dissected from this pinned holotype and used to extract DNA, for which we acquired the lowest DNA concentration (0.124 ng /µL) and did not sequence.

Figures

Fig. 1. Strict consensus tree resulting from equal weighting analysis. Jackknife values over 51 are reported for tree one of eight.

Fig. 2. Tree resulting from implied weighting analysis using K = 12 with characters unambiguously optimized. Symmetric resampling values over 51 are represented for trees obtained with K = 3, K = 6, K = 9, and K = 12 analyses. Characters and character states are described in pp. 11–22. Specimens not to scale.

Fig. 7. Dorsal habitus of holotypes of Voconia Stål, 1866 species with distribution: purple = Afrotropical region, green = Australasian region, pink = Oriental region. Scale bars = 3 mm.

Fig. 9. Lateral habitus of species of Voconia Stål, 1866. Scale bars = 3 mm.

Fig. 12. Pygophore of species of Voconia Stål, 1866. Scale bars = 0.5 mm.

Fig. 14. Aedeagus of species of Gerbelius Distant, 1903 and Voconia Stål, 1866. Scale bars = 0.5 mm.

Fig. 20. The distribution of species of Gerbelius Distant, 1903 and Voconia Stål, 1866 in Southeast Asia.