Platypleura Amyot & Audinet-Serville, 1843

Sanborn, Allen F., 2021, The cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea: Cicadidae) of Madagascar including a new tribe, five new genera, twelve new species, four new species synonymies, five revised species status, ten new combinations, new tribal assignments for four genera, one new subtribe synonymy, a checklist and key to the species, Zootaxa 4937 (1), pp. 1-79 : 7

Platypleura Amyot & Audinet-Serville, 1843

Platypleura Amyot & Audinet-Serville 1843: 465 .

Poecilopsaltria Stål 1866: 2 .

Dasypsaltria Haupt 1917: 303 .

Neoplatypleura Kato 1926: 238 .

Systophlochius Villet 1989: 52 .

Type species.— Cicada stridula Linnaeus 1758: 436. ( India) (error)

Remarks.— Amyot & Audinet-Serville (1843) characterized the genus as species with a short, stocky, hairy body, prothorax with dilated lateral margins, and wings opaque basally and hyaline distally. Boulard (1973) added a head with a flattened anterior postclypeus, head about as wide as or slightly smaller than the mesonotum, generally opaque fore and hind wings, and the hind wing not as wide as the fore wing as additional distinguishing features for the genus. The undilated nor arched basal area of the fore wing costal margin and the lateral extension of the pronotum with a spine-like protuberance quickly distinguish the Madagascar species of the genus.

Distribution.—Species of the genus are found from Southern Africa and Madagascar through the Middle East and India to southeastern Asia, China, the Philippines and Japan ( Metcalf 1963a; Duffels & van der Laan 1985; Sanborn 2013; Price et al. 2019). Genetic analysis of the single Madagascar species is necessary to determine where in the phylogeny of the genus it should be placed or if it represents a different genus.