Chileria araucana Carvalho, 1985

Forero, Dimitri, 2009, Description of One New Species of Chileria and Three New Species of Orthotylus, with Nomenclatural and Distributional Notes on Neotropical Orthotylinae (Heteroptera: Miridae: Orthotylini), American Museum Novitates 3642, pp. 1-50 : 20-21

Chileria araucana Carvalho

Figures 1 , 7 , 9

Chileria araucana Carvalho, 1985: 291 [n. sp.]; Schuh, 1995: 97 [catalog].

DIAGNOSIS (fig. 7): Recognized by the long apical ramus of the vesica, as long as the posteriorly directed rami, reaching the point of bifurcation of the anteriorly directed ramus; anteriorly directed ramus with portions of unequal length, longer one twice as long as shorter one, longer one serrate on ventral margin; genital capsule with right margin of aperture only with one posterior tergal process, knoblike; left margin of aperture with anterior processes grouped as three small spines; posterior process simple, strongly curved laterally; dorsal left side of genital capsule nearly flat, without a protuberant dorsal process.

Chileria araucana is easily recognized among Chileria species by the structure of the male genitalia, in particular the genital capsule (fig. 7). Chileria araucana is similar to Ch. pamparum in having just one process on the right margin of the aperture of the genital capsule (fig. 8). Nonetheless, the structure of the process in Ch. araucana is more similar to that of Ch. colla , which is directed medially and denticulate distally (fig. 7). In Ch. araucana the process is knoblike (fig. 7) and in Ch. colla it is more slender (fig. 7). The vesica of Ch. araucana is unique among the species of Chileria in having a long ventral portion of the apical ramus reaching the point of bifurcation of the anteriorly directed rami (fig. 7). In all the remaining species of Chileria this ramus is at most half as long as in Ch. araucana .

DISTRIBUTION: The only examined specimen is from Los Lagos (Region X) in Chile (fig. 9). Present also in Argentina and Bolivia ( Carvalho, 1985), but see discussion below.

HOSTS: Unknown for this species.

DISCUSSION: The teneral paratype is from Osorno , Chile, and although not topotypic with the holotype, it is from the same region in Chile as the holotype ( Carvalho, 1985), the two localities being less than 70 km apart from each other. Carvalho (1985) mentioned that Ch. araucana is also distributed in Argentina and Bolivia, and that the body coloration varies from pale yellow to greenish. Because most of the species of Chileria have relatively restricted distributional ranges, and those localities of Ch. araucana from Argentina and Bolivia overlap other species of Chileria , and because the dorsal aspect and coloration of the species of Chileria is similar (e.g., fig. 1), it is possible that the paratype series of Ch. araucana may be a mixture of several species. These paratypes, which were unavailable to me for study, are deposited in the California Academy of Sciences (cf. Carvalho, 1985).

PARATYPE ( MALE): CHILE: [Los Lagos – Region X]: Osorno : 30 Km E of Puyehue , [40.66256 ° S 72.26109 ° W], 23 Jan 1951, Ross and Michelbacher , Paratype Chileria araucana Carvalho det., 13 ( AMNH _ PBI 00106842 ) ( USNM) .

Figures

Fig. 1. Dorsal habitus digital photographs. Biobiocoris setosus, Chileria andina, C. araucana, C. colla, C. pamparum, Hadronemella argentina, and Hyporhinocoris fratruelis. Specimens of H. fratruelis (A–D) show color and total length variation among males and females.

Fig. 7. Chileria araucana and C. colla. Male genitalia: vesica; genital capsule and parameres in situ; and phallotheca. C. araucana specimen (paratype) is teneral. The gray arrow on C. colla indicates where variation in serration on the short (lateral) portion of the anteriorly directed ramus occurs. Black arrow indicates position of longer (medial) portion of ramus in paratype, and dotted line indicates usual position of this portion of the ramus in other specimens.

Fig. 9. Distribution map of Chileria andina, C. araucana, C. colla, and C. pamparum.