Voconia typica ( Miller, 1958 ) Castillo & Rédei & Weirauch, 2022

Castillo, Stephanie, Rédei, Dávid & Weirauch, Christiane, 2022, Pseudocetherinae (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) revisited: phylogeny and taxonomy of the lobe-headed bugs, European Journal of Taxonomy 788 (1), pp. 1-95 : 85-88

Voconia typica ( Miller, 1958) comb. nov.

Figs 1–2 , 8 , 10 , 13–14 , 18

Paragerbelius typicus Miller, 1958: 66 , figs 88–92.

Revised diagnosis

This species is most similar to V. bracata sp. nov. They are distinguished from other species of the genus Voconia by the slender body, long head (1.7 times as long as wide), the ventral surface of the hind leg with four large spines in the posterior row, the large pale spot between the R and M veins, and the dorsal laterotergites I and II being yellow, the remainder dark brown. The following differentiate V. typica : largest species of Voconia (12.4–12.7 mm long); uniformly brown legs; anterior pronotal lobe is gently rounded, posterolateral margins nearly straight.

Type material

Holotype

INDONESIA • ♂; “North New Guinea” [Papua], Jayapura Co., Cyclops Mts, Sabron camp; [2.50° N, 140.42 ° E]; elev. “ 2200 ft ” [671 m]; Jun. 1936; L.E.C. leg.; coll. B.M. 1936-271; USI: UCR_ENT 00048384 ; NHMUK 013588138 (previously BMNH(E) 1255222).

Paratype INDONESIA • 1 ♂; same collection data as for holotype; BMNH .

Additional material examined:

INDONESIA • 1 ♂; “West New Guinea” [Papua], Central Mountains, Archbold Lake ; [3.41 ° S, 138.53 ° E]; elev. 760 m; 26 Nov.–3 Dec. 1961; S. Quate and L. Quate leg.; dissected pygophore and aedeagus in vial; USI: UCR_ENT 00073815 ; BPBM .

Redescription

Male ( Figs 8 , 10 )

BODY LENGTH. 12.4–12.7 mm; macropterous.

COLORATION. Head: dark brown; postocular region with dark patches adjacent to medial ocellar margin and pale patches adjacent to lateral ocellar margin; labium lighter than head, light brown. Thorax: as head; pronotum uniformly coloured; scutellum dark with contrasting yellow apical spine. Hemelytron (abducted): clavus dark reddish-brown with distal yellow stripe; corium reddish-brown with anteromedial, posteromedial, and distal yellow spots; membrane dark with large pale spot between R and M veins;

membranal veins R and M proximally pale, remainder as membrane. Legs: dark brown. Abdomen: dark brown, dorsal laterotergites I and II yellow.

INTEGUMENT AND VESTITURE. Head and pronotum: finely granulose with sparse, short macrosetae interspersed among dense pubescence; interocular region with two paired macrosetae; antennifer with short lateral setigerous tubercle; morphologically ventral surface of labium with dense, short macrosetae. Thorax: anterolateral angles of pronotal collar without macrosetae or setigerous tubercles. Hemelytron: corium with sparse, long setation. Legs: posterior row of protuberances on mid and hind femora with four large spines on distal half. Abdomen: ventral surface pubescent.

STRUCTURE. Head: elongate, about 1.7 times as long as wide; anteocular region about one third of head length, about as long as postocular region (measured to anterior margin of neck); postocular region in dorsal view longer than eye, lateral margins gently rounded; pedicel about 1.8 times length of head width; maxillary plates ellipsoidal, adjacent to and reaching apex of clypeus; apices of maxillary plates in dorsal view directed straight; clypeus in dorsal view narrower than maxillary plates; clypeal apex round, not narrowed; interocular glabrous markings V-shaped, joined medially at interocular sulcus; interocular sulcus in dorsal view bent anteromedially, subtriangular; eye width in dorsal view wider than synthlipsis; eye reaching ventral head margin in lateral view; ventrolateral swelling of buccula without lateral protrusion that surpasses buccular margin, flat margin; labial segment I in lateral view straight, surpassing posteroventral eye margin; morphologically dorsal surface of labial segment II nearly straight, about 0.4 times length of segment I. Thorax: pronotal collar in dorsal view narrow medially with anterolateral angles short, projected forward; anterior pronotal lobe subequal in length to posterior pronotal lobe, lateral margins almost straight; glabrous markings on pronotum thin and deeply depressed; median apodeme depression of pronotum deep and elongated transversely; scutellar spine long, subhorizontal; anteriad-directed process of prosternum smoothly rounded, without paramedial lobes; anterior margin of stridulitrum not elongated into protuberance; proepimeron with smoothly rounded posteroventral margin. Legs: fossula spongiosa present on fore and mid legs.Abdomen:anterior margin of terga weakly carinulate, tergum II without carinules laterally; terga II and III with paired prominent longitudinal carinae, almost reaching posterior margin of tergum III. Pygophore ( Fig. 13 ): transverse bridge with rounded posterior margin; posterior region of ventral surface of pygophore in lateral view with large swelling; short median apical process sharply bent posteriorly in lateral view; lateral pygophore margin with protuberance; posterior pygophore margin with clustered macrosetae on decline; parameres sinusoidal, apex tapered into squarely rounded tip. Aedeagus ( Fig. 14 ): endosoma almost entirely covered with spicules; apex of dorsal phallothecal sclerite bifid in dorsal view; basal plate extension about 7.9 times as long as wide.

Female

Unknown.

Distribution ( Fig. 18 )

This species is distributed on the island of New Guinea, in Papua.

Remarks

This description is based largely on UCR_ENT 00073815, since the holotype ( Fig. 8 ) and paratype remain at the BMNH. Images of the types in their unit trays at the BMNH were used to evaluate this species concept. The abdomen of specimen UCR_ENT 00073815 was used for DNA extraction, but we did not get sufficient DNA in our NGS library for Illumina sequencing.

Figures

Fig. 1. Strict consensus tree resulting from equal weighting analysis. Jackknife values over 51 are reported for tree one of eight.

Fig. 2. Tree resulting from implied weighting analysis using K = 12 with characters unambiguously optimized. Symmetric resampling values over 51 are represented for trees obtained with K = 3, K = 6, K = 9, and K = 12 analyses. Characters and character states are described in pp. 11–22. Specimens not to scale.

Fig. 8. Dorsal habitus of holotypes of Voconia Stål, 1866 species with distribution: purple = Afrotropical region, green = Australasian region, blue = Neotropical region, pink = Oriental region. Scale bars = 3 mm.

Fig. 10. Lateral habitus of species of Voconia Stål, 1866. Scale bars = 3 mm.

Fig. 13. Pygophore of species of Voconia Stål, 1866. Scale bars = 0.5 mm.

Fig. 14. Aedeagus of species of Gerbelius Distant, 1903 and Voconia Stål, 1866. Scale bars = 0.5 mm.

Fig. 18. The distribution of species of Voconia Stål, 1866 in the Australasian region.