Lepidogryllus siamensis Chopard, 1961

Sultana, Riffat, Sanam, Surriya, Kumar, Santosh, R, Sheik Mohammad Shamsudeen & Soomro, Fakhra, 2021, A review of Gryllidae (Grylloidea) with the description of one new species and four new distribution records from the Sindh Province, Pakistan, ZooKeys 1078, pp. 1-33 : 1

publication ID	https://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1078.69850
publication LSID	lsid:zoobank.org:pub:573D4067-16A2-4E20-859D-354DFAF83B4D
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/70C5BD95-6D58-5A0B-AEB1-55796DFEFD1F
treatment provided by	ZooKeys by Pensoft
scientific name	Lepidogryllus siamensis Chopard, 1961
status

Treatment

Figures 1 View Figure 1 , 2 View Figure 2 , 3 View Figure 3 , 4 View Figure 4 , 5 View Figure 5 , 6 View Figure 6 , 7 View Figure 7 , 8 View Figure 8 , 9 View Figure 9 , 10 View Figure 10 , 11 View Figure 11

Material examined.

Pakistan, Sindh Prov. • 1♀; Surriya ; 27 Jul. 2019; Ramalani, Umerkot 25.3549°N, 69.7376°E GoogleMaps .

Description.

Medium size. Colouration dark brown (Fig. 1S View Figure 1 ). Head shiny brown, short, narrow, ocelli black, horizontal dark band between (Fig. 3H View Figure 3 ). Pronotum as long as head, 2 × wider than long on dorsal field, anterior and posterior margin pilose, truncated, dorsal surface brownish, mottled; lateral lobe of pronotum a little deeper than pronotal length (Fig. 5I View Figure 5 ). Elytra hardly reaching abdominal end. Wings well developed, with condensed veins (Fig. 10F View Figure 10 ). Legs brown, hind femora much longer than middle femora. Posterior tibia armed with seven external, three medio-internal spines, very wide at anterior, numerous patches on dorsal surface (Fig. 7E View Figure 7 ). Abdomen brown. Cerci long tapered. Ovipositor long, straight, with yellowish base (Fig. 1S View Figure 1 ).

Female: LH 1.96(mm), LP 2.03(mm), LT 9.5(mm), LF 5.6(mm), LT 07(mm), LT 04(mm), TBL 11(mm).

Ecology.

This species was recorded for the first time from the village Ramalani, Umerkot, on the roots of Acacia nilotia locally known as “babul”. This is a medium-sized, thorny, nearly evergreen tree found in the desert area. Generally, it grows to 20-25 mm but may remain shrubby in poor conditions. Our specimen was collected from a shrub. This tree provides limber, fuel, shade, food, dye, and gum, and it also impacts the environment positively through soil reclamation.

Global distribution.

Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Hawaii, China, Pakistan ( Cigliano et al. 2020).

Remarks.

Lepidogryllus has a very close morphological resemblance with Velarifictorus : the male has an enlarged round head with a swollen frons (Randell, 1964). Kim (2013) also reported the many similarities between these two genera. The species of these genera also have very significant variation in their morphometric parameters. Kim (2013) reported a body length of 14-15.2 mm in L. siamensis ; we report a body length 11 mm.