Austrosipyloidea Brock & Hasenpusch, 2007

Brock, Paul D. & Hasenpusch, Jack, 2007, Studies on the Australian stick insects (Phasmida), including a checklist of species and bibliography, Zootaxa 1570 (1), pp. 1-81 : 7

Austrosipyloidea Brock & Hasenpusch , gen. nov.

Type species. Necroscia carterus Westwood, 1859: 138 , pl. 15:5, here designated.

Characteristics of the genus

Elongate medium-sized winged phasmids, body length c. 110 mm in females, c. 75 mm in males.

Body smooth, pale, with a bold longitudinal black stripe running the length of the body in type species, fainter on the abdomen. Head slightly longer than wide. Pronotum same length as head or slightly longer. Mesonotum elongate, four to five times length of pronotum. Metanotum and medium segment slightly shorter. Antennae long, easily exceeding length of fore legs. Fore wings short, hind wings reasonably long, not reaching end of 5 th – 6 th abdominal segment. Legs unarmed, moderately long, hind legs short of anal segment, particularly in females. Operculum curved sharply to slightly rounded tip, not reaching end of 9th abdominal segment. Male subgenital plate similar length, end broader, subtruncate. Cerci remarkably long, narrow double pronged structure, over twice length of elongate anal segment.

Egg. Smooth oval capsule, with dome-shaped operculum. Micropylar plate broad, almost running the full length of the dorsal surface.

Notes: no other known Australian (or world) Necrosciinae have the double pronged, fragile long cerci characteristic of this genus, which is close to Sipyloidea . Slenderer than nearly all Necrosciinae , there is, however, a look-alike species ( Sipyloidea gracilipes Sjöstedt, 1918 ) in north Queensland, which even has a similar black longitudinal body stripe, but it lacks the long cerci; to complicate matters, there is an intermediate ‘form’ in Western Australia (near Millstream), which has cerci of an intermediate length. The egg of S. gracilipes appears sufficiently different to be excluded from this new genus for the time being, pending further studies.

Species included

A. carterus ( Westwood, 1859) comb. n. (transferred from Sipyloidea Brunner, 1893 ) (= Sipyloidea debilitata Redtenbacher, 1908 , Sipyloidea filiformis Redtenbacher, 1908 syn. n.).

Derivation of name Australian ‘Sipyloidea’, named after a mountain in Lydia, where Niobe was turned into stone.