Danacea Laporte de Castelnau

Liberti, Gianfranco, 2009, Improved Strategies for Branching on General Disjunctions, Zootaxa 2318, pp. 339-385 : 347

Genus Danacea Laporte de Castelnau

Danacea has been split ( Liberti 1985) into two subgenera, Danacea and Allodanacaea , that mainly differ in the position of the median lobe’s apical orifice: ventral in Danacea (Danacea) and dorsal (thus conforming to the other Dasytidae , see for instance Figs 1 and 5 ) in D. ( Allodanacaea ); differences in the external morphology are reported in the identification key below. The Danacea s. str. were split by Schilsky (1897a)

into four groups (see also Liberti 1989), based on the hair pattern on the disc; these groups are only used to help identification and bear little systematic meaning. In Sardinia only groups 1, 2 and 4 can be found (see key below).

The genus includes 12 taxa in Sardinia, 10 of which strictly endemic and 2 Sardo-Corsican. Species identification is not easy particularly in subgenus Allodanacaea , where dissection can be necessary. The definition of some terms is useful to work through the key:

- disc: the central area of pronotum, easily and immediately seen when looking at the insect from above;

- hairs: in Danacea , hairs are intermediate between setae and scales, rather short and thick, green, greygreen or yellowish. They cover the whole body and hide, to a good extent, the colour of the underlying integuments, which are usually dark green to blackish; the pattern made by such hairs on the disc of pronotum is a character widely used for indentification;

- ornate elytra: in Danacea the elytra are usually uniformly covered with hairs; however in certain species, specimens or entire populations show elytral patterns of differently coloured hairs (for instance green and white) and/or symmetrically arranged naked areas. The presence of individuals with ornate elytra is frequent in some group 1 species (see below), although it has little systematic meaning, as it is rather common to find both pure populations (i.e. populations where all the individuals have either normal or ornate elytra) and mixed ones. Ornate elytra can also be found in some group 3 species, not found in the Sardinian fauna.

Figures

FIGURES 1–11. Danacea spp. from Sardinia, scale bar: 0.5 mm. 1–2. Median lobe in lateral view. 1. Danacea (D.) sardoa sardoa Kiesenwetter (San Leonardo de Siete Fuentes). 2. Danacea (D.) sardoa declivis Liberti (Gonnosfanadiga). 3–4. Elytral apex in lateral view. 3. Danacea (D.) sardoa sardoa (Dorgali). 4. Danacea (D.) sardoa declivis (Gonnosfanadiga). 5–11. Median lobe in lateral view. 5. Danacea (Allodanacaea) oreas Liberti (Gonnosfanadiga). 6. Danacea (A.) milleri Schilsky (Paduledda). 7. Danacea (A.) gorditana Liberti (paratype, Capo del Falcone). 8. Danacea (A.) sulcitana Liberti (Olia Speciosa). 9. Danacea (A.) nympha Liberti (Capo Caccia). 10. Danacea (A.) picicornis picicornis (Küster) (Monti Marganai). 11. Danacea (A.) picicornis supramontana Liberti (Dorgali).