Aphelocheirus

Carbonell, José Antonio, Abellán, Pedro, Arribas, Paula, Elder, Jean François & Millán, Andrés, 2011, The genus Aphelocheirus Westwood, 1833 (Hemiptera: Aphelocheiridae) in the Iberian Peninsula, Zootaxa 2771, pp. 1-16 : 5-6

Aphelocheirus sp. (north Iberian populations)

Short description: Specimens from Northern Iberia previously assigned to A. murcius . Water bug with a flat oval body and length between 8.1 and 9.1 mm. Colour: head, including antennae, yellowish, eyes blackish. Dorsally greyish thorax and abdomen, sometimes with broad yellowish lateral bands and yellowish marks in pronotum and posterio of abdomen. Yellow legs. Genitalia: heel of left paramere pointed ( Fig. 6 A), right paramere long and thin with rounded heel. Penis with lateral spines in apical part.

These specimens do not present any clear morphological differences with those from populations of A. murcius of South-east of Iberian Peninsula. After genitalia study we did not find significant differences in the shape of left paramere ( Fig. 6 A,B).

Figures

FIGURE 6. Left paramere of A) Aphelocheirus sp.; B) A. murcius; C) A. aestivalis (La Manche, France); D) A. aestivalis (Corsica).