Brachytrupes bapaensis Simeu-Noutchom, Kekeunou & Heller, 2023

Simeu-Noutchom, Alain, Heller, Klaus-Gerhard, Nyobe, Philene Corinne Aude Um & Kekeunou, Sevilor, 2023, Taxonomy review of the genus Brachytrupes (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) with the description of a new species and key to the species, Zootaxa 5336 (3), pp. 373-388 : 382-383

Species Brachytrupes bapaensis Simeu-Noutchom, Kekeunou & Heller sp. nov. ( Table 4 ; Fig. 5 ; Fig. 6 )

Material examined. Holotype: male; central Africa , Cameroon, West Region , Bapa Kingdom , Top neighborhood, 5.27203 N, 10.32331 E; Sept. 2022; Coll. Alain Simeu-Noutchom & Sévilor Kekeunou; Laboratory of Zoology, UY1.

Paratypes: 7 males and 3 females, Cameroon, West Region ; type locality: Bapa kingdom, Sept. 2022; Coll. Alain Simeu-Noutchom & Sévilor Kekeunou; Laboratory of Zoology, UY1, and Bapa Museum, Bafoussam .

Diagnosis. Dark-brown body; pronotum smooth and black with a yellow spot on the lateral margin, slightly constricted in the middle way, 1.5 times wider than long, posterior margin as wide as the anterior; hind femora distinctly shorter than in others huge species.

Description: Body black-brown, pubescent; head almost as long as large, globose; frons totally dark brown with a depression between interocular space, clypeus yellowish but brown at the anterior edge, labrum yellowish; antennae nearly twice as long as the cerci, multi-articulated; protruding black eyes. Three ocelli placed in a transverse line on the forehead; occiput yellow, strongly convex, and raised above pronotum. Pronotum dark brown with yellow spot on lateral margin, slightly constricted midway by a furrow, 1.5 times wider than long, and posterior margin as wide as anterior margin. Mesonotum larger than the metanotum, and the two together form a heart-shaped joint connected by a suture ( Fig. 5 f ). Tegmina dark brown, projecting beyond end of abdomen; parallel longitudinal veins about 13 to 14, well projecting as their oblique veins, 3 slightly curved oblique veins, oval mirror separated in two almost equal parts by a curved vein. Stridulatory file about 5. 8 mm length, with 38 teeth, regularly spaced with about 8 teeth /mm, but much more widely spaced at it proximate end. Wings extend notably beyond the end of cerci.

Legs robust, yellow, and pubescent, especially the four forelegs, which are covered with numerous long hairs. Forelegs less massive, uniform color, with three less powerful spurs at the apex of tibia front leg and four less powerful spurs at apex of tibia middle leg; metatarsus strongly shortened, about 2 mm length; tympanic organ with very large internal and external openings; the width of the external opening is approximately one third less than the width of the fore tibia in the area. Hind legs massive, very swollen, pale color, hind femora with a longitudinal dark stripe above, closer to the base, and with a dark spot next knee, femur 1.7 times longer than the tibia; tibia little longer than tarsus, armed with 3 to 5 posterior spines on both sides, ending with three spurs on both side at the apex, consisting of two more powerful and one weak spurs; hind metatarsus about three times longer than fore metatarsus, armed with 3 or 5 weak spinules on each superior edge.

Phallic complex. Male genitalia ( Fig. 5 ) is 8 mm long and about 5 mm wide. Epiphallus bilobed little cover by setae; epiphallic lobes short, curved, pointed with U-shaped depression between them and in the middle of which there is a small triangular notch; ectoparameres short, triangular at the base, large not reaching the apical end of the epiphallic lobes. Endopameres large, with large apodemes at the base located in the middle of the spermatophore sac; virga is long and thick; its sclerotized base covers almost the entire spermatophore sac ( Figure 5 h, i ).

Etymology. The specific epithet refers to the type locality of Bapa, a kingdom in the West Region of Cameroon.

Distribution. Since B. membranaceus membranaceus is a nomen dubium, its description did not correspond to any species in Africa and it may have been confused with the newly described species Brachytrupes bapaensis sp. nov. in some communications; the following countries are considered potential distributions of B. bapaensis sp. nov. or others very large Brachytrupes species (except Cameroon) ( Fig. 8 ) Nigeria, Congo, Mozambique, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Namibia ( Giovanni et al. 1987; Tchibozo et al. 2005; Kelemu et al. 2015; Miantsia et al. 2018; Aminata et al. 2022).

Figures

FIGURE 5. Brachytrupes bapaensis sp. nov. (a): habitus male, (b): tegmen male, (c) habitus female, (d) tegmen female, (e) frontal view, (f) thorax, (g) stridulatory file, (h) genitalia dorsal view, (i) genitalia ventral view, (j) genitalia lateral view. scale bar 1mm.

FIGURE 6. Calling song of Brachytrupes bapaensis sp. nov. (100 ms- section): sonogram showing the frequency change per time.

FIGURE 8. Distribution of the species in the genus Brachytrupes.