Anisops occipitalis Breddin, 1905

Zettel, Herbert, Lane, David J. W., Pangantihon, Clister V., Freitag, Hendrik & Be, Jalan Tungku Link, 2012, Notes on Notonectidae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) from southeastern Asia, mostly from Brunei and the Philippines, Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 52 (1), pp. 29-48 : 32

Anisops occipitalis Breddin, 1905

( Figs. 4–7 )

Anisops occipitalis Breddin, 1905: 152 ; LANSBURY (1961: 505); LANSBURY (1965: 61); POLHEMUS (1995: 66); NIESER (2004: 89); CHEN et al. (2005: 421); NIESER et al. (2008: 265).

Material examined. JAPAN: RYUKYUS: Ishigaki Island, collected at light, 16.x.1999, leg. S. Belokobylskij, 2 JJ ( ZMSP, NHMW). PHILIPPINES: BOHOL: northern Bohol, southwest of Talibon, Zamora Dam, 25 m a.s.l., pond, 9.xi.2007, leg. H. Zettel (474b), 9 JJ 6 ♀♀ ( NHMW, UPLB), leg. C. V. Pangantihon (PC474b), 8 JJ 9 ♀♀ ( HZWA, USCP). INDONESIA: SULAWESI TENGGARA PROVINCE: Kolaka, 20 km south of Pomalea, 2.iii.1989, leg. N. Nieser (N8927), det. N. Nieser, 1 J 1 ♀ ( NHMW). CERAM: near Wahal, 12.ii.1989, leg. M. A. Jäch, det. N. Nieser, 1 J 1 ♀ ( NHMW).

Distribution and notes. Anisops occipitalis is widely distributed from West Malaysia to Australia and New Caledonia ( CHEN et al. 2005). In addition to its southern distribution recorded by Nico Nieser in several papers ( NIESER 2004, CHEN et al. 2005, NIESER et al. 2008), there are more northern records from southeastern China, Taiwan, and Japan by LANSBURY (1961) and POLHEMUS (1995). In his morphological analysis of A. occipitalis, LANSBURY (1965) did not include the Taiwanese material studied some years earlier (in LANSBURY 1961). Examined specimens from the Ryukyus in southern Japan belong to the same morph as the Philippine material. These samples differ from the typical A. occipitalis (e.g., from Sulawesi and Ceram) chiefly in a wide head which is hardly narrower than the pronotum, a characteristic that has been also described for eastern populations of A. occipitalis (Russell Island, New Guinea; LANSBURY 1965: figs. 7C, 7D) and in A. leucothea Esaki, 1926 from Samoa, which is suspected to be possibly conspecific with A. occipitalis (see LANSBURY 1965). Under such circumstances the Philippine population is tentatively identified as A. occipitalis . A male from Bohol is illustrated in Figs. 4–7 .

Figures

Figs. 1–7. Anisopinae. 1–4 – Habitus, dorsal aspect: 1 – Anisops breddini Kirkaldy, 1901, male; 2 – A. kuroiwae Matsumura, 1915, male; 3 – A. nasutus Fieber, 1851, male; 4 – A. occipitalis Breddin, 1905, male. 5–7 – Anisops occipitalis Breddin, 1905, male, head and pronotum, in dorsal (5), lateral (6) and frontal view (7). © NHMW Hemiptera Image Collection.