Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2022 | 14(2): 20643–20647

 

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) 

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.7427.14.2.20643–20647

#7427 | Received 12 May 2021 | Final received 19 October 2021 | Finally accepted 27 January 2022

 

 

First record and description of female Onomarchus leuconotus (Serville, 1838) (Insect: Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) from peninsular India

 

Sunil M. Gaikwad 1, Yogesh J. Koli 2 & Gopal A. Raut 3

 

1 Department of Zoology, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, Maharashtra 416004, India.

2 Department of Zoology, Sant Rawool Maharaj College, Kudal, Maharashtra 416520, India.

3 Department of Zoology, Radhabai Kale Mahila Mahavidyala, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra 414001, India.  

1 smg_zoo@unishivaji.ac.in (corresponding author), 2 dryjkoli@gmail.com, 3 rautgopal189@gmail.com

 

 

 

Editor: R.M. Sharma, Zoological Survey of India, Pune, India.    Date of publication: 26 February 2022 (online & print)

 

Citation: Gaikwad, S.M., Y.J. Koli & G.A. Raut (2022). First record and description of female Onomarchus leuconotus (Serville, 1838) (Insect: Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) from peninsular India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 14(2): 20643–20647. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.7427.14.2.20643-20647

 

Copyright: © Gaikwad et al. 2022. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

 

Funding: Shivaji University, Kolhapur.

 

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: Authors are grateful to head, Department of Zoology, Shivaji University Kolhapur for providing necessary facilities; Dr. Sigfrid Ingrisch for the identification.

 

 

 

Abstract: The members of family Tettigoniidae, commonly called katydids, generally exhibit mimicry and camouflage with shapes and colours similar to leaves. The genus Onomarchus Stal is mainly distributed in temperate and tropical Asia, and was earlier reported from Assam and West Bengal in India. The species Onomarchus leuconotus (Serville, 1838) is reported here for the first time in peninsular India from the Western Ghats (Chandoli National Park, Kolhapur, Maharashtra). This record extends the known geographical range of this species by about 1630 km. As its holotype is not described from India, the female of O. leuconotus is described here via detailed diagnostic characters, colour photographs and illustrations.

 

Keywords:  Distribution, female description, katydid, leuconotus, Phaneropterinae. 

 

 

 

During a survey of Orthoptera from the Western Ghats area, we came across a green Tettigonid at Chandoli National Park of Kolhapur district, and identified it as Onomarchus leuconotus, not previously reported from peninsular India.

The genus Onomarchus Stal, 1874 is spread across temperate and tropical Asia, and so far represented by five species (http://orthoptera.speciesfile.org, accessed on 7 May 2021). From India, Shishodia et al. (2010) listed Onomarchus bisulacatus from Mizoram, and Onomarchus leuconotus from Assam and West Bengal. Subsequently, Srinivasan and Prabakar (2012) reported Onomarchus uninotatus from Arunachal Pradesh. Serville (1838) described the male of O. leuconotus, while Barman (1993) provided minimum information about the diagnosis of this species and mentioned its locality as West Bengal (Kolkata) and Assam of India, as did Shishodia et al. (2010) who made a checklist without diagnosis and deposition records. Our report is the first record for the Western Ghats and peninsular India. Here we describe female O. leuconotus by giving detailed diagnostic characters, colour photographs and illustrations.

 

Materials and Methods

Material examined: ZSUK.E.TT.07, 1 female, 15.xi.2012, Ukhalu, Chandoli National Park, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India (Figure 1), 17.1260N and 73.8600E, 844 m, coll. Y.J. Koli, deposited in Department of Zoology, Shivaji University, Kolhapur. The specimen was studied under a Nikon stereozoom (SMZ 800) microscope and photographed using a Canon 550D camera with 100 mm lens. Measurements were done with digital Vernier calipers. The specimen was identified as O. leuconotus by using the original description (translated from French to English) of Serville (1838), De Jong (1939), Barman (1993), and images of the type specimen and keys on the website Orthoptera Species File (http://orthoptera.speciesfile.org). Dr. Sigfrid Ingrisch from The Alexander Koening Zoological Research Museum in Germany confirmed the identification based on images of the specimen.

 

Results

Description Female (Image 1 & 2):

Measurements (in mm): body length 82; pronotum 11; tegmen 75 & width 26; fore femur length 10, mid femur 12, hind femur 25, hind tibia 24; ovipositor length 30 & width 7 mm.

 

Diagnostics

Head: Lateral margins, starting from the lower margin of the eyes and antennal socket downwards along the genae, broadly yellowish-white; labrum and mandibular base whitish (Image 1A, E).

Pronotum: short, disc white, hind margin acutely angular, centrally one long and one slightly short transverse groove running downwards and short vertical groove intersect posterior transverse suture vertically (Image 2A).

Meso and Metasternum: mesosternum somewhat quadrate, metasternum subquadrate narrows posteriorly; two large pits are situated nearly in the central area in both meso and metasterna and one very fine additional pit found near mesosternal caudal margin medially; pits in the metasternum joined by nearly straight grooves, mesosternal lateral pits joined to the medial pit by oblique grooves (Image 2B).

Legs: yellowish, fairly short; fore and mid femur barely dented below; fore femur bearing three spines on internal carina and 6 spines on external carina; mid femur bearing five spines on external carina and seven spines on internal carina; hind femur bearing five strong spines, broad at the base and hooked at tip and four small spines on external carina and 10 small spines on internal carina; hind tibia armed with five spines on the upper side and ventrally seven pairs of moderate spines, 4th pair separated. 

Forewing: slightly leathery, undulating anteriorly, large, more than twice the length of the body (Image 1A). Venation (Image 2C): The costa (C) fine, unbranched, long, runs along the anterior margin; subcosta (Sc), branched into anterior short subcostal (Sc1) and long posterior subcostal (Sc2); the radius (R), most prominent, runs 2/3 distance and branched into anterior radius (R1) and posterior radius (R2); median (M) long runs parallel to radius for a short distance and then separates, reaching to the apical region; cubitus (Cu) forks at the base into long cubitus 1 (Cu1) and short cubitus 2 (Cu2), continues with a hind margin of tegmen; anals short, unbranched, 4 in number (A1, A2, A3, and A4).

Hindwing: large, hyaline, protruding beyond the tegmina at rest (Image 1A).

Abdomen: Last abdominal tergite short, transverse, subfused with epiproct; epiproct semicircular with shallow Y shaped furrow; cerci cylindrical, narrower towards the apex, sinuately curved outside before apex, apex obtuse dark coloured with a minute spinule; subgenital plate roughly triangular with basal angles rounded, basal half portion strongly raised in the midline, apical half portion with fine medial furrow, apex subtruncate, crenulated and obtusely projecting short lateral lobes (Image 1C,D); ovipositor large about four times longer than broad, sabre like, dorsal valves with seven oblique furrows at apex, 2/3 ventral valve and 1/3 dorsal valve dark black (Image 1B).

 

Discussion

This species is distributed in India, Malaysia, Sumatra, Papua New Guinea, Java, China, Maluk, Indo-China, and Vietnam (http://orthoptera.speciesfile.org, accessed on 30 April 2021). This is the first illustrated report of this species from Western India, and the present record extends its known geographical range from Kolkata to western India, a distance of about 1,630 km by air (Figure 1).

The holotype of Onomarchus leuconotus is from Java, and the type specimen of this species is in the Natural History Museum, London. Serville originally described the O. leuconotus (male) in 1838 as Pseudophyllus leuconotus in French. The same species was later described with three synonyms: O. albisellatus (Walker 1870), O. latipennis (Pictet & Saussure 1892) and O. nobilis (Brunner 1895), none described from India.  However, Barman (1993) recorded O. leuconotus from India with scant diagnostics. 

According to the original description by Serville (1838), elaborative diagnostics of de Jong (1939), images and keys on http://orthoptera.speciesfile.org, the specimen recorded from Chandoli National Park is treated here as O. leuconotus. The whitish genae, part of mouth and labrum; pronotal colour and shape; structure of meso- and metasternum; hind tibiae with strong 5 spines dorsally; broad tegmina and ovipositor in the present specimen are identical with O. leuconotus.

de Jong (1939) mentioned important characters for identifying the three species of Serville. If hind tibia has five strong thorns on the dorso-internal margin, pronotum dorsally white, broad tegmen and ovipositor:  O. leuconotus; if seven strong thorns on the dorso-internal margin of hind tibia, a white spot near the base of the tegmen and ovipositor five times as long as broad: O. uninotus and if six small thorns on hind and lot of white spots on tegmen and ovipositor is about six times longer than its thickness: O. cretaceus. Since the characters suggested for O. uninotus and O. cretaceus, are not found in our specimen and since our specimen contained the characters mentioned for O. leuconotus by de Jong (1939), our specimen proves to be O. leuconotus. Considering the thorns on the feet, it appears that only the large spines on the hind tibia are counted, mainly for O. leuconotus. However, while describing our specimen, it has been found that in addition to large thorns, many small and blunt thorns are also found on femur and tibiae. It seems that the counting of the small spines has not been given importance thus information on this count is given here. Moreover, he mentioned additional character for O. leuconotus that narrow strip of little pits running from the lower margin of the eyes downwards along the genae, which is not found in the other species and the shape of the meso- and metasternum by line drawings. The characters and line drawings of meso- and meta-sternum given by de Jong (1939) are clear in our specimen. In addition, as per the revision of the Pseudophyllinae by Beier (1954), our specimen agrees best with O. leuconotus (Serville 1838). The smooth pronotum, the sinuate shape of the dorsal margin of the tegmen and its venation, and the white band at the genae agree with that species.

The pronotum has only one transverse groove in the anterior half of the disc, and the hind margin is acutely angular (de Jong 1939). The line drawing of pronotum on the website of Orthoptera species File (http://orthoptera.speciesfile.org) shows one transverse and one vertical groove, which intersect horizontal one. However, the pronotum of the specimen under study is having an additional short transverse groove. This is probably because our specimen is female, it may have another groove in it, or it may not have been noticed, as the anterior transverse groove is indistinguishable.

 

For figure & images - - click here

 

References

 

Barman, R.S. (1993). Insecta: Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae. Zoological Survey of India, Fauna of West Bengal, State Fauna Series 3(4): 355–367.

Beier, M. (1954). Revision der Pseudophyllinen. Instituto Español de Entomología, Madrid, 479 pp.

Brunner, V.W. (1895). Monographie der Pseudophylliden. Herausgegeben von der K.K. Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 282 pp.

de Jong, C. (1939). On Indo-Malayan Pterophyllinae (Orthoptera, Family Tettigoniidae). Zoologische Mededelingen 21(1): 1–109.

Pictet, A. & H. de Saussure (1892). Iconographie des quelques sauterelles vertes- Imprimerie Aubert-Schuchardt, Geneve, 28 pp, 1–3 plates.

Serville, J.G.A. (1838 [1839]). Histoire naturelle des insectes. Orthoptères.  Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret, Paris, i-xviii (index), 776 pp, 1–14 plates. 

Shishodia, M.S., K. Chandra & S.K. Gupta (2010). An annotated checklist of Orthoptera (Insecta) from India. Records of Zoological Survey of India. Occasional paper No. 314: 1–366.

Srinivasan, G. & D. Prabakar (2012). Additional records of Tettigoniidae from Arunachal Pradesh, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 4(14): 3255–3268. https://doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3065.3255-68

Walker, F. (1870). Catalogue of the specimens of Dermaptera Saltatoria in the collections of British Museum. Part III. Printed for the Trustees of the British Museum, London, 604 pp.