Sikhamani Viraktamath & Webb

Dai, Wu, Zhang, Yalin, Viraktamath, C. A. & Webb, M. D., 2006, Two new Asian Scaphytopiini leafhoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Deltocephalinae) with description of a new genus, Zootaxa 1309, pp. 37-44 : 41-43

Sikhamani Viraktamath & Webb gen. nov.

Type species: Sikhamani delicatula sp. nov.

Small leafhoppers 5.00 mm long. Ochraceous with dark brown markings.

Head narrower than pronotum, conically produced anteriorly. Vertex longer medially than interocular width, flat, transition between vertex and face angular but not carinate. Face longer than wide, frontoclypeus 1.7 times as wide at antennal base as at apex. Clypellus wider near apex than at base, extending beyond genal curve. Pronotum widened posteriorly, about twice as wide as long, about as long as vertex, lateral margin carinate. Scutellum slightly longer than pronotum. Forewing with three subapical and three apical cells, outer subapical cell almost triangular, inner subapical cell open behind, a series of 8 reflexed veins to costa. Arrangement of setae on hind tibia: R1 18±2, R2 14±1, R3 18±1. Hind basitarsus with 4 platellae on distal transverse row of setae.

Male pygophore longer than high, with a mesal process directed mesally, long setae confined to caudal half. Tenth segment long, sclerotized. Subgenital plate elongate, triangular with a row of marginal setae. Style with broad anterior part, subapical lobe discernable but not well­developed, apophysis of style elongate, tapering caudally. Connective fused with aedeagus, its arms close together, with a distal spinelike paraphysis. Aedeagus complex, with stout preatrium and platelike basal processes, shaft very slender, tubular with apical gonopore.

Remarks: In the key to genera of Scaphytopiini of the Indian subcontinent by Viraktamath and Anantha Murthy (1999), Sikhamani keys out to Sudhamruta Viraktamath and Anantha Murthy. It differs from Sudhamrua in having cylindrical apophysis of style, well developed preatrium, and basal processes to the aedeagal shaft, and arcuate arms of the connective.

Etymology. The generic name is to be treated as an arbitrary combination of letters, and the gender is feminine.