Tettigidea scudderi, Bolivar, 1887

Silva, Daniela Santos Martins, Cadena-Castañeda, Oscar J. & Pereira, Marcelo Ribeiro, 2021, Batrachideinae (Orthoptera: Caelifera: Tetrigidae): an overview of the most diverse tetrigids of the Neotropical region, Zootaxa 4946 (1), pp. 1-84 : 50-52

Tettigidea scudderi species group

Diagnosis: Body slender. Facial carine and frontal costa not thickened, in lateral view moderately prolonged and rounded fastigium. Spine of the anterior margin of the pronotum sharp, thin and projecting moderately over the head. Most of the known macropronotal species, posterior margin of the pronotum reaching the apex of the abdomen or notoriously surpassing it. Median carina of the pronotal disk poorly elevated, pronotal disk almost flat. Hind wings generally developed.

Species included: T. scudderi Bolivar, 1887 ; T. chapadensis Bruner, 1910 ; T. pulchella Rehn, 1904 , and T. intermedia Bruner, 1910 .

Distribution: South America: Guyana, Amazonia of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Chaco of Brazil and Bolivia ( Fig. 39 ).

Comments: Chapada in Brazil, it is a recognized locality for taxa described by Lawrence Bruner especially for Tetrigidae ( Bruner, 1910) , numerous species have been described or reported in that locality, for Tettigidea it has been very recurrent, suggesting at first sight to be a case of sympatry. When comparing with the different species, especially those of the new scudderi group, it is discovered that the majority of species are synonyms, going from nine to having four species in this group, several of the species were separated by Bruner (1910, 1920) by characters that today are considered own variations of the same species, such as coloration and size.

Synonyms are set as follows:

(i) T. chapadensis contains two new synonyms T. costalis syn. nov. and T. hancocki syn. nov.; these two species were compared with T. costalis by Bruner (1910), but when we studying the type specimens it was possible to confirm that the three specific entities are slender, they have the same structure of the frontal costa, structure of the anterior spine of the pronotum and similar shape of the subgenital plate of the males, in addition, the type specimens have the same strip near the apex of tegmina, which could perhaps vary in intensity in the individuals of the T. chapadensis populations, but in the type specimens studied, this variation was not observed, the stripes look very similar. The main variation that was seen among the specimens studied was the coloration, which, although they keep a similar pattern, in T. chapdensis is dark brown, but in the synonyms species it is light brown.

(ii) T. intermedia have as synonym T. subatera syn. nov.; both species have this characteristic thickened hind femur, more thickened than the other related species, the only difference is the poor development or absence of hind wings of T. subatera , versus well developed hind wings of T. intermedia , differentiating into a winged and wingless forms. The vertex structure, frontal costa, fastigio-facial curvature and subgenital plate of the male are similar to T. chapadensis , they are only differentiated by the absence or poor development of the stripe near the apex of tegmina to T. intermedia , this species may possibly be a brachypronotal form of T. chapadensis , but new collections are needed to obtain additional specimens to corroborate this hypothesis.

(iii) T. steinbachi syn. nov. is synonymized here under T. scudderi , when reviewing the type specimens of the species, these specific entities could not be separated, since they are the most robust species of those described for the Scudderi group, having the advanced facial-facial angle, lateral carinae present in the pronotal disc or striate and the same structure on the frontal costa.

Figures

FIGURE 39. Map of approximated occurrence of the genus Rehnidium Grant, 1956 and some Tettigidea Scudder, 1862 species.