Voconia tridens, 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 : 79-81

Voconia tridens sp. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:82E67D5A-E019-40EE-A019-E3BCD5E781DA

Figs 1–2 , 8 , 10 , 13–14 , 17

Diagnosis

Distinguished from other species of Voconia by the following combination of characters: coarsely granulose head and pronotum; maxillary plates not adjacent to and far surpass clypeal apex; and antennifers with a long, lateral spine. This species is recognized from the macropterous morph of V. schoutedeni by the yellow head and pronotum; the maxillary plates in lateral view are not wide, about the width of the scape; scutellar spine is subhorizontal; and the hemelytra is not blackish, it is a light brown with pale coloration at the base and apex of the corium.

Etymology

The specific epithet is the Latin adjective ‘ tridens , -, -’, meaning ‘three-toothed, three-pronged’, derived from the prefix ‘ tri -’ combined with the Latin noun ‘ dens ’, referring to the elongated and separated maxillary plates and clypeus that form three prongs.

Type material

Holotype SUDAN • ♂ (dissected pygophore and aedeagus in vial); Blue Nile, Abu Hashim-Galegu; [12.25 ° N, 34.69 ° E]; 23–24 Nov. 1962; R. Linnavuori leg.; USI: AMNH_PBI 00170712 ; AMNH.

Description

Male ( Figs 8 , 10 )

BODY LENGTH. About 8.0 mm; macropterous.

COLORATION. Head: yellow; postocular region with red patches adjacent to medial ocellar margin; labium as head. Thorax: uniformly yellow; scutellum yellow. Hemelytron (abducted): clavus uniformly yellow; corium proximal half mostly yellow, distal half brown with yellow spot at distal apex; membrane dark with pale V-shaped marking along R and M veins. Legs: yellow. Abdomen: yellow, dorsal laterotergites with a pale brown stripe on posterior margin.

INTEGUMENT AND VESTITURE. Head and pronotum: coarsely granulose with dense, short setigerous tubercles; interocular region with two pairs of stout setigerous tubercles paramedially; antennifer with long lateral spine; morphologically ventral surface of labium with sparse, short macrosetae. Thorax: anterolateral angles of pronotal collar without macrosetae or setigerous tubercles; scutellar lateral carinae with pubescent tubercles. Hemelytron: corium with short macrosetae. Legs: posterior row of protuberances on mid and hind femora with three large spines on distal half. Abdomen: ventral surface pubescent.

STRUCTURE. Head: elongate, about 1.3 times as long as wide; anteocular region two-fifths of head length, longer than postocular region (measured to anterior margin of neck); postocular region in dorsal view longer than eye, lateral margins subrectangular; scape not reaching head apex; pedicel about 0.9 times length of head width; maxillary plates ellipsoidal, not adjacent to or longer than clypeus; apices of maxillary plates in dorsal view diverging; clypeus in dorsal view narrower than maxillary plates; clypeal apex round, narrowed; interocular glabrous markings V-shaped, joined medially at interocular sulcus; interocular sulcus in dorsal view curved and smoothly rounded anteriorly; eye width in dorsal view narrower than synthlipsis; eye reaching ventral head margin in lateral view; ventrolateral swelling of buccula with acute protrusion surpassing buccular margin, small setigerous tubercles along margin of protrusion; labial segment I in lateral view straight, surpassing posteroventral eye margin; morphologically dorsal surface of labial segment II nearly straight, about 0.4 times length of segment I. Thorax: pronotal collar in dorsal view wide medially with anterolateral angles long, flared laterally; anterior pronotal lobe about 0.7 times length of posterior pronotal lobe, lateral margins almost straight; glabrous markings on pronotum deeply depressed; median apodeme depression of pronotum shallow, elongated longitudinally; scutellar spine long, subhorizontal; anteriad-directed process of prosternum with paramedial lobes; anterior margin of stridulitrum not elongated into protuberance; proepimeron with smoothly rounded posteroventral margin. Legs: fossula spongiosa present on fore and mid legs. Pygophore ( Fig. 13 ): transverse bridge with triangular posterior margin; posterior region of ventral surface of pygophore in lateral view straight, not swollen; short median apical process sharply bent posteriorly in lateral view; lateral pygophore margin with protuberance; posterior pygophore margin with clustered macrosetae on protuberance; parameres round, apex tapered into squarely rounded tip. Aedeagus: endosoma almost entirely covered with spicules; apex of dorsal phallothecal sclerite tongueshaped in dorsal view; basal plate extension about 4.6 times as long as wide.

Female

Unknown.

Distribution ( Fig. 17 )

Only known from the type locality in Northeastern Africa, Sudan.

Remarks

The antennifer spine on the right side of the head of the holotype is absent. We assume it was damaged since three species, V. schoutedeni , V. monodi , and V. ifana , have similar long spines that are paired. The pygophore of specimen AMNH_PBI 00170712 was used for DNA extraction, but we did not get sufficient DNA in our NGS library for Illumina sequencing.

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

Fig. 10. Lateral habitus of species of Voconia Stål, 1866. Scale bars = 3 mm.

Fig. 13. 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. 17. The distribution of species of Voconia Stål, 1866 in Africa.