Phaesticus Uvarov, 1940

Storozhenko, Sergey Yu. & Dawwrueng, Pattarawich, 2015, New and little-known pygmy grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae) from Thailand, Zootaxa 4052 (5), pp. 527-554 : 548

Genus Phaesticus Uvarov, 1940

Type species: Tettix mellerborgi Stål, 1855 , by monotypy (inherited from replaced name).

Notes. The genus Phaestus was established for a single species from Java ( Bolívar, 1887). This generic name was preoccupied in Hymenoptera and a new replacement name Phaesticus was proposed ( Uvarov, 1940). Later Blackith (1992) ignoring Uvarov’s action again proposed a new name Lamprauges for the genus Phaestus Bolívar, 1887 . Otte (1997) clarified the situation with the double proposed replacement names and synonymized Lamprauges Blackith, 1992 under Phaesticus Uvarov, 1940 . The position of the genus Phaesticus in the systematics of the family Tetrigidae is still under discussion. Here we follow the traditional point of view ( Hancock, 1907a; Zheng, 2005; Zheng et al., 2011a) and place it in the subfamily Discotettiginae , while Otte (1997) transferred Phaesticus to the subfamily Tetriginae without any comments.

Composition. Currently the genus Phaesticus consists of six species, namely P. mellerborgi ( Stål, 1855) from Indonesia (Java), P. sumatrensis ( Willemse, 1928) from Indonesia (Sumatra), P. moniliantennatus ( Günther, 1940) from China (Fujian), P. c ar i na t us Zheng, 1998 from China (Yunnan), P. a z e m i i Mahmood, Idris et Salmah, 2007 from Malaysia ( Malacca Peninsula: Selandor), and P. insularis (Hancock, 1907) distributed in Malaysia ( North Borneo: Sarawak and Malacca Peninsula: Selangor) and Indonesia (Java, Sumatra) ( Stål, 1855; Hancock, 1907; Willemse, 1928; Günther, 1940; Zheng, 1998; Mahmood et al., 2007). The holotype of P. az e m i i is the male deutonymph from Selangor and probably this species is only a synonym of P. insularis , because the imago of the latter was also recorded from Selangor (Mahmood et al., 2007). One new species is described below.