Leptophyes

Kleukers, Roy M. J. C., Odé, Baudewijn & Fontana, Paolo, 2010, Two new cryptic Leptophyes species from southern Italy (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae), Zootaxa 2506, pp. 26-42 : 34

The genus Leptophyes in Europe

In Europe eight species of Leptophyes are now known to occur:

L. albovittata (Kollar, 1833) L. boscii Fieber, 1853

L. calabra spec. nov.

L. discoidalis (Frivaldszky, 1867) L. laticauda (Frivaldszky, 1867) L. lisae Heller & Willemse, 1989 L. punctatissima (Bosc, 1792) L. sicula spec. nov.

Males of most species can be easily identified by morphological characters (see Identification key), but especially for the males of the L. punctatissima - group the song is the easiest character (see Bioacoustics). The females are more difficult to identify. The character to separate L. boscii from L. discoidalis , placement of the node under or at the base of the gonangulum at the side of the ovipositor, as mentioned by Harz (1969) doesn’t seem to be valid. No reliable character is available at the moment. Also the females of the L. punctatissima - group are difficult to identify. It is advised to collect males, wherever possible.

In table 1 and figure 13-16 the characters for the males Leptophyes punctatissima - group are summarized. In figure 17 the distribution of the species in Europe is depicted. The records of L. discoidalis for Italy (Romagna: Campigna and Toscana: Mt. Grabendo) of Schmidt (1989, p. 16) have been omitted. The third author examined the voucher specimens in the collection of the Zoologische Staatssammlung München and they proved to belong to L. boscii .