Balclutha Kirkaldy

Lu, Lin, Zhang, Yalin & Webb, M. D., 2013, Review of the Grass Feeding Leafhopper Genus Balclutha Kirkaldy (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Deltocephalinae) in China, Zootaxa 3691 (5), pp. 501-537 : 502-503

Genus Balclutha Kirkaldy

Gnathodus Fieber, 1866: 505 . Preoccupied name.

Balclutha Kirkaldy, 1900: 243 . new name for Gnathodus Fieber 1866 , not Gnathodus Pander, 1856 . Type-species: Cicada punctata Fabricius, 1775

Balcluthina Pruthi, 1930: 46 , synonymised by Webb & Vilbaste, 1994: 58

For additional synonyms, see Knight (1987).

Selected references. Fieber (1866), Kirkaldy (1900), Pruthi (1930), Blocker (1967), Knight (1987), Webb & Vilbaste (1994), Chiang (1996).

Description. Length (including tegmen). Male: 2.3–4.5 mm.

General color straw yellow, green to brown. Vertex and pronotum sometimes with brown or orange red longitudinal bands and spots.

Head as wide as pronotum, sometimes narrower or slightly wider. Vertex short, anterior margin broadly rounded, rarely protuberant anteromedially. Frontoclypeus narrow, laterofrontal sutures extending to ocelli.

Clypellus narrow, slightly expanded apicad, apex convex, sides rarely parallel. Margin of genae next to clypellus much narrower than ocellocular area. Ocelli situated at anterior margin of vertex, visible dorsally. Pronotum much longer than vertex, lateral margins short, divergent, sometimes longer, without carina; posterior margin transverse or shallowly concave. Forewings elongate; appendix wide, extending around 1st and 2nd apical cells; outer subapical cell absent; inner subapical cell open basally; with 2 subapical cells and 4 apical cells; hindwings with 3 apical cells. Hind 1st tarsomere base with obvious ventral notch.

Male genitalia. Pygophore broadly or narrowly rounded posteriorly, posteroventral margin usually produced, with or without processes; with group of submarginal setae posteriorly. Subgenital plates triangular, long or short; apex fingerlike, membranous, or rarely without membranous apical extension; uniseriate row of setae along ventrolateral margin, sometimes with small sclerotised tooth present on dorsolateral margin. Style with apical process well developed, usually strongly arched; lateral lobe well developed, rarely reduced; basal arm very short. Connective Y-shaped; stem longer than arms, or equal to or shorter; articulating with aedeagus. Aedeagus usually simple, filamentous, recurved anterodorsally, base sometimes expanded; rarely with process.

Distribution. Worldwide.

Remarks. The leafhopper genus Balclutha is cosmopolitan and a taxonomically very difficult group. The genus was adequately described in the Pacific and the Oriental Regions by Knight (1987) and Webb & Vilbaste (1994). The character of the pregenital sternite was first used to readily distinguish the species by Webb & Vilbaste (1994) and who successfully differentiated some similar species based on females. Further study of the females of Balclutha is needed to detect more characters to distinguish species.