Eurycorypha meruensis Sjöstedt, 1909

Hemp, Claudia Hemp Klaus-Gerhard Heller Elżbieta Warchałowska-Śliwa Beata Grzywacz Andreas, 2013, Biogeography, ecology, acoustics and chromosomes of East African Eurycorypha Stål species (Orthoptera, Phaneropterinae) with the description of new species, Organisms Diversity & Evolution (New York, N. Y.) 13 (3), pp. 373-395 : 390

Eurycorypha meruensis Sjöstedt, 1909

The male was described from Mount Meru by Sjöstedt (1909). Chopard (1921) described the female from Mombasa, Kenya.

Distribution Common species in East Africa ( Chopard and Kevan 1954). Records from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania (specimens NHM London, UK).

Diagnosis Eurycorypha meruensis Sjöstedt males have an elongated last abdominal tergite that ends into two acute tips and is strongly down-curved ( Fig. 14a, b). Elongated down-curved last abdominal tergites are also present in male E. velicauda Karsch, 1893 , E. arabica Uvarov, 1936 and E. darlingi Uvarov, 1936 . However, the latter three species have very differently shaped last abdominal tergites, which are tongue-like ( E. velicauda ) or with different ridges and laminae and expanded cerci ( E. arabica , E. darlingi ). The females of E. meruensis Sjöstedt have a well developed, rather elongated and, for the group, moderately up-curved ovipositor and a flap-like subgenital plate with a broad base ( Fig. 14c, d). The combination of a moderately and elongat- ed ovipositor together with a triangular subgenital plate is not known in any other female Eurycorypha species.

Phenology and biology Adults in November ( Sjöstedt 1909); attracted to light ( Chopard and Kevan 1954). Adults were collected all around the year, but the species is more frequent on Mount Kilimanjaro during the months of November to February.

Habitat Desert grass and thorn bush in northern Kenya ( Chopard and Kevan 1954). Coffee–banana plantations of the submontane and montane zone, submontane forests, lower border of the montane forest at Mount Kilimanjaro ( Hemp 2005b; Table 2).

Remarks In the entomological collection Tervuren, Belgium, several specimens were studied that are similar to E. meruensis Sjöstedt. However , they differ in length and stoutness of the elongated tenth abdominal tergite and are thus probably separate species, closely related to E. meruensis Sjöstedt. These specimens were collected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Albertville and Elisabethville. As in E. meruensis Sjöstedt ( Fig. 14a) the tenth abdominal tergite is elongated, hood-like-shaped with a bifurcate tip. Eurycorypha meruensis Sjöstedt has in difference to these specimens a very slender elongate tenth tergite with very slender bifurcate processes at the tips, while in the DRC specimens the tenth tergite is stouter and the bifurcate processes are also stout.

Another species related to the E. meruensis species complex was collected in Tanzania near Moba. The elongate process of the tenth tergite is much shorter than in E. meruensis Sjöstedt and the species collected in the DRC, and deeply bifurcate with stout tips.