Hamma franciscae Bayendi Loudit, Durante & Susini

Loudit, Sandrine Mariela Bayendi, Durante, Antonio & Susini, Antonio, 2014, Membracidae of Gabon: the genus Hamma Buckton, 1905 (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha) with description of three new species, Zootaxa 3838 (3), pp. 323-346 : 344-345

Hamma franciscae Bayendi Loudit, Durante & Susini n. sp. ( Figs. 14 , 15)

Holotype

♂ Gabon, Makokou, Ipassa research station (Ivindo National Park), 0°30’43”N 12°48’13”E, Feb.-Mar. 2011, A. Susini leg. In MSNS.

Diagnosis

Morphologically this species could not be confused to any other, thanks to its pronotal reddish blunt tubercles, to the absence of the terminal spine of the posterior process (in common only with H. carlini ), and to the compressed from above view but laterally large first node of the posterior process. Superficially, its posterior process looks like the one of H. ugandensis in lateral view, but every other view and character are clearly different.

Size

Total length: 3.3 mm Pronotal length: 3.7 mm Tegminal length: 3.3 mm

Description

HEAD: black, vertical, slightly convex, punctuate, with sparse yellowish pilosity and two small reddish tubercles between ocelli; vertex approximately 1.6 times longer than wide; upper margin slightly arcuate; ventral margin Wshaped, with the lower parts slightly bent forward; centro-ocular line just below ocelli.

Frontoclypeus roundish, a little longer than wide, lateral lobes completely fused to frontoclypeus and hardly distinguishable; rostrum brown with black base and tip; antennae reddish brown.

PRONOTUM: black, densely punctate with reddish brown blunt tubercles with a small bristle at the summit; metopidium as high as wide, median carina reddish brown, percurrent; supraocular callosities large, sub-triangular in fronto-lateral view, smooth and brown, lacking significant punctation; humeral angle prominent and blunt; posterior angle rounded; no suprahumeral horns.

Posterior process black, densely punctuate, with large reddish brown patches, emerging posteriorly from the pronotum and continuously from the posterior margin; sinuate in lateral view, with three nodes, the first of which laterally more compress than the other two; after rising from metopidium, the first arch acute, ending in the second node, and from this the second arch large, ending in the third node, very high on the tegminal anal margin; no terminal spine at the caudal end; dorsal and ventral carinae reddish brown. First half of the posterior process with few small blunt tubercles, second half with more dense and bigger pointed tubercles. All the tubercles reddish brown with a small bristle at the apex.

SCUTELLUM: reddish brown at base, blackish in the middle, and brown again at the apex, punctuate, with the base longer than the height, emarginated with scutellar apices acute; base swollen except for the corners, with one ogival tubercle on each side of the swelling. The said tubercles with a tuft of small whitish backwards setae.

FOREWING: three times longer than wide, hyaline, sclerotized basally, golden light brown and punctate. Pterostigma with quite dense small setae, roughly sub-oval; this and venation same colour of wing base, just slightly hyaline. A brownish green large dot on the limbus at the anal angle. The first apical cell triangularish, with sinuate base adjacent to the first and second discoidal cells. Venation with few very sparse small setae.

LEGS: light brown, tibiae of the second pair with a yellow distal band.

Abdomen yellowish with heavy brown punctation on the anterior four fifth of each segment. Punctation dense dorsally, gradually more sparse laterally until the ventral side. Sternum yellowish brown with many golden setae.

Etimology

The species is dedicated to Francesca Susini, daughter of the third author.

Figures

FIGURE 14. Hamma franciscae n. sp., Africa Eq., Gabon, Makokou / Ipassa, Feb. - Mar. 2011, A. Susini.