Onega

Takiya, Daniela Maeda & Cavichioli, Rodney Ramiro, 2004, A review of the Neotropical sharpshooter genus Onega Distant, 1908 (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Cicadellini), Zootaxa 718, pp. 1-19 : 4-5

Distribution of Onega

Previous and present geographic records for the genus are predominantly from rainforests along the Andes. The new records from Paraguay (for O. avella and O. fassli ), based on old repinned material (BMNH) collected by G. Morewood, are (if reliable) of interest, as eastern Paraguay is dominated by subtropical deciduous forest and dry forests.

Also of interest is the distribution of O. sanguinicollis . The records of this species from Cuba are from its original description and from the single female specimen, noted above, studied by Signoret (1853). In subsequent literature this species is recorded from Surinam by Stoll (1788 apud Metcalf 1965), from Colombia and Cuba by China (1938) (based on Melichar’s manuscript), and from Colombia by Evans (1947). However, it seems unlikely that these authors actually saw specimens of this species. On the other hand, Onega has never been subsequently recorded from Cuba or any Caribbean island, even though many sharpshooters were studied from Cuba in recent times ( Dlabola & Novoa 1976, Young 1977, Novoa & Alayo 1985, 1986, 1987, Alayo & Novoa 1986, 1987, Hidalgo­Gato et al. 1999). Of the sixteen genera of Cicadellini recorded from the West Indies (excluding Trinidad and Tobago), there is no other sharpshooter genus distributed only in the Caribbean islands and South America ( Table 1 ). There is also no recent Fulgoroidea, Cicadoidea, Cercopoidea, and Membracidae genus or species with this distributional pattern ( Ramos 1988, excluding erroneous records of Spinodarnoides Funkhouser from Guyana and Phormophora Stål from Jamaica noted by McKamey 1998, Bartlett 2000, excluding doubtful records of flatid Petrusa epilepsis (Kirkaldy) from South America, C. Bartlett in litt.). A Caribbean­South American distribution is only exemplified by the evacanthine leafhopper genus Jassoqualus Kramer, of which a fossil species was described from Dominican amber, while the recent species occurs in Brazil ( Dietrich & Vega 1995, Dietrich 2004).

New World regions WI NA CA SA WI NA CA WI NA WI

+NA +CA +SA +CA +CA +NA

+SA +SA +CA Genera +SA Based on the above information, it seems improbable that Onega occurs on Caribbean islands and that the specimen of O. sanguinicollis from the Signoret collection is mislabeled. Several specimens from the Signoret collection are believed to bear labels with erroneous localities (see Takiya & Mejdalani 2004). Although, the type­locality of O. sanguinicollis as stated by Latreille (1811) is also Cuba, in a short introduction to this work, Alexander von Humboldt stated that the material described there was collected by the botanist Aimé Bonpland during their Amazonian trip along the rivers Orinoco, Casiquiare, and Negro (bordering Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela).