Zelus sphegeus Fabricius, 1803

Zhang, Guanyang, Hart, Elwood R & Weirauch, Christiane, 2016, A taxonomic monograph of the assassin bug genus Zelus Fabricius (Hemiptera: Reduviidae): 71 species based on 10,000 specimens, Biodiversity Data Journal 4, pp. 8150-8150 : 8150

Zelus sphegeus Fabricius, 1803

Zelus sphegeus Fabricius, 1803, p. 287, orig. descr.; Stål, 1872, p. 91, cat.; Lethierry and Severin, 1896, p. 153, cat.; Haviland, 1931, p. 137, 153, list and note; Wygodzinsky, 1949a, p. 50, checklist; Maldonado, 1990, p. 331, cat.

Diplodus sphegeus , Stål, 1868, p. 109, descr.; Walker, 1873, p. 125, cat.

Materials

Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: UCR_ENT 00075108 ; recordedBy: Dom. Smidt; sex: Adult Female; otherCatalogNumbers: ZMUC 103083; Taxon: scientificName: Zelussphegeus; family: Reduviidae; genus: Zelus; scientificNameAuthorship: Fabricius, 1803; Location: country: unknown; stateProvince: unknown; locality: Habitat in America meridionali ; Identification: identifiedBy: G. Zhang; dateIdentified: 2012; Event: eventDate: No date provided; Record Level: institutionCode: ZMUC

Description

Figs 182, 183

Male: unknown.

Female: (Fig. 182) Medium-sized, total length 14.18-14.95 mm (mean 14.57 mm, Suppl. material 2); slender. COLORATION: Most of dorsal surface brown, anterior pronotal lobe yellowish. VESTITURE: Sparsely setose. Head with inconspicuous, short, erect and recumbent setae, more dense dorsally, some slightly larger erect setae ventrally. Anterior pronotal lobe with short, erect and recumbent setae; posterior pronotal lobe with short, erect and recumbent setae. Abdomen with short, erect and recumbent setae. STRUCTURE: Head: Cylindrical, L/W = 2.34. Postocular lobe very long; in dorsal view distinctly narrowing through anterior 1/2, posterior 1/2 constant, tube-like. Eye smallish; lateral margin only slightly wider than postocular lobe; dorsal and ventral margins removed from surfaces of head. Labium: I: II: III = 1: 2.3: 0.5. Thorax: Anterolateral angle rounded, without projection; medial longitudinal sulcus shallow near collar, deepening posteriorly. Posterior pronotal lobe with finely rugulose surface; disc distinctly elevated above humeral angle; humeral angle armed, with spinous processes. Scutellum moderately long; apex angulate. Legs: Very slender. Hemelytron: Slightly surpassing apex of abdomen, not more than length of abdominal segment seven; quadrate cell moderately sized; Cu and M of cubital cell subparallel.

Diagnosis

This species can be recognized by the pronotum bicolorous, anterior lobe yellowish and posterior lobe dark brown; the humeral angle with long spinous process. Similar to females of Z. truxali , but the legs are not banded and the anterior pronotal lobe appears to be more humped than that in Z. truxali .

Distribution

Central America and South America (Fig. 183). Only know from two countries: Guyana and Panama.