Pararhaphe Henry, 1988

Japetus Distant, 1883: 227 (description). Type species: Japetus sphaeroides Distant, 1883, by monotypy. Preoccupied by Japetus Stål, 1863 ( Hemiptera: Fulgoridae).

Japetus: Lethierry & Severin (1894): 240 (catalog).

Japetus: Barber (1911): 28 (synonym of Arhaphe).

Japetus: Bergroth (1913): 166 (catalog, as synonym of Arhaphe).

Japetus: Van Duzee (1916): 24 (checklist, synonym of Arhaphe).

Japetus: Van Duzee (1917): 204 (catalog, synonym of Arhaphe).

Japetus: Barber (1924): 227 –228 (generic status restituted, key).

Japetus: Hussey (1929): 28 (catalog).

Japetus: Torre-Bueno (1941): 109, 114–115 (key to genera and species).

Japetus: Halstead (1972): 1, 6 (synonym of Arhaphe, redescription of A. sphaeroides).

Japetus: Bliven (1973): 128 –129 (generic status confirmed, diagnosis repeated).

Japetus: Brailovsky (1981): 83, 105, 109 (as synonym of Arhaphe).

Japetus: Henry (1988): 161 (catalog, nomenclature).

Pararhaphe Henry, 1988: 161 (catalog). New substitute name for Japetus Distant, 1883 .

Diagnosis. Pararhaphe and Arhaphe share the following characters: head globose, callar lobe gibbose with two median longitudinal furrows, pronotal lobe flat with lateral margins straight, strongly diverging towards pronotal base, and brachypterous hemelytra. However, Pararhaphe differs from Arhaphe by the following characters: Head longer than pronotum (Figs. 7, 20, 23); microsculpure on head dorsum consisting of polygones with puncture in their center (Figs. 20, 23), abdominal segments long; in the females, the abdomen does not widen towards the apex (Fig. 2); abdomen of the genus Pararhaphe has a similar shape and structure as in Stenomacra Stål, 1870 or Theraneis Spinola, 1837 ( Larginae: Largini). In Pararhaphe there is a strigil formed by a series of short transverse ridges along the entire outer margin of the corium (similar to Arhaphe —see Lattin (1958)); there is no trace of a strigil in abdominal ventrites II and III.

Taxonomy. Barber (1911) synonymised the genus Japetus with Arhaphe but later reinstated it to generic status, transferring Arhaphe mimetica to Japetus (Barber 1924) . Barber (1924) based his action on the following characters: “head more globose, as long as but considerably wider than the pronotum; membrane less abbreviated; body and legs without profuse coating of long setae, almost nude; posterior lobe of pronotum not at all or very sparsely tomentose; anterior femora armed with a single small tooth near apex; rostrum short.“ Halstead (1972) once more synonymised Japetus with Arhaphe (along with Jarhaphetus), but the latest treatement by Bliven (1973) again recognised it as a separate genus, noting that “Barber‘s redescription of Japetus was tailored to fit his mimeticus “ and repeating the original Distant‘s (1883) descriptions of Japetus and J. sphaeroides . However, Bliven (1973) did not object to the generic placement of A. mimetica in Japetus and maintained it. Henry (1988) noted the homonymy of Japetus Distant, 1883 with Japetus Stål, 1863 ( Hemiptera: Fulgoridae), and proposed Pararhaphe as a new substitute name for it.

Pararhaphe sphaeroides differs from all the species of Arhaphe by the characters listed in the generic diagnosis, especially the head longer than the pronotum and the structure of the abdomen of the female which is elongated, not enlarged. We consider these differences sufficient to warrant a separate generic status for Pararhaphe .