Philipsalta nigrina Lee, Marshall & Hill

Lee, Young June, Marshall, David C., Mohagan, Alma & Hill, Kathy B. R., 2016, Cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) from Camiguin of Mindanao Province and Dinagat Island in the Philippines, with a new genus and three new species, Zootaxa 4097 (2), pp. 187-202 : 197-200

10. Philipsalta nigrina Lee, Marshall & Hill sp. nov.

( Figs 5–7 )

Remarks. This species was referred to as "Redondo Black" in Marshall et al. (2015).

Type material. Holotype: male, Dinagat, southwestern slopes of Mt. Kanbinlio, 748 m, 10°22.639’N 125°38.095’E, 3 VII 2010, K.B.R. Hill, D.C. Marshall, J. Jones, & D. Mohagan. Paratypes: 4 males, same data as holotype; 1 male, same data as holotype except for 2 VII 2010, with voucher label: 10. PH. DI.RED.01, "Redondo Black", specimen recorded; 1 male, same data as holotype except for 2 VII 2010, with voucher label: 10. PH. DI.RED.02, "Redondo Black". Recordings of both males will be deposited as explained above.

Etymology. The specific name is the feminine form of the Latin adjective meaning “black” in reference to the mostly black body of this species.

Measurements of types (n = 2 males: paratype – holotype). Length of body: 13.0–14.0. Length of head and thorax together: 5.7–6.4. Length of abdomen: 7.3–7.6. Width of head including eyes: 4.0–4.3.Width of mesonotum: 3.6–3.8. Width of posterior margin of abdominal tergite 3: 3.6–3.8. Length of forewing: 15.4–16.7. Width of forewing: 5.9–6.0. Wing span: 34.3–37.0.

Description of male ( Figs 5 , 6 ). Body tiny; mostly black. Head ( Fig. 6 A) black with two pairs of tiny reddish brown spots on anteror margins. Distance between lateral ocelli and eyes wider than distance between lateral ocelli. Antennae black. Postclypeus slightly swollen anteriad and rather flat ventrally; with a pair of reddish brown fasciae along lateral margins. Ventral part of head black. Anteclypeus without marks. Rostrum lighter, mixed with black and brown; with apex extending beyond posterior margin of mid-coxae. Lorum and gena without marks.

Thorax ( Fig. 6 A): Pronotum black except median longitudinal narrow fascia and pronotal collar, reddish brown. Pronotal collar very narrow, not dentate. Mesonotum black with a pair of paramedian indistinctly reddish brown spots between posterior part of submedian sigilla and central part of lateral sigilla. Cruciform elevation black with lateral brown patches. Thoracic sternites black with brown to reddish brown patches on episternum 2 and epimeron 2. Legs black with reddish brown patches. Fore-femur with primary, secondary, and small subapical spine.

Wings hyaline without infuscation. Forewing venation reddish brown but darker distally. Basal membrane yellowish gray. Hind wing with six apical cells.

Operculum ( Fig. 6 C) semicircular, short and wide, not reaching posterior margin of sternite II; ochraceous but fuscous basally. Opercula distinctly separated from each other.

Abdomen triangular in dorsal view, slightly longer than head and thorax together; black with brown to reddish brown caudal margin on each of tergites 3–6 (entirely black in paratype). Tergite 1 very short, less than one-fourth as long as tergite 2 in median length. Timbal cover absent ( Fig. 6 D). Timbals not extending below wing bases ventrally. Abdominal sternites ( Fig. 6 B) reddish brown anteriorly and gradually darkened to black posteriorly with brown caudal margin on each of sternites 3–6 (brown anteriorly and gradually darkened to black posteriorly in paratype).

Male genitalia ( Fig. 5 C, D, E): Pygofer ovate with triangular dorsal beak in ventral view. Upper lobe moderately pointed. Dorsal beak triangular. Median lobe of uncus very short. A pair of clasper-like processes protruding downward.

Acoustic behavior ( Fig. 7 ). On 2–3 VII 2010, males were observed singing in foliage of tall shrubs at the type locality (“ PH. DI.RED“ collection site code), which is a transition zone between montane and pygmy forest. Recordings lasting 90 seconds were made of two focal males at an ambient temperature of 26.1 degrees Celsius, using a Marantz PMD660 digital recorder sampling at 48 kHz combined with a Sennheiser short shot gun having a frequency response of 40-20,000 Hz, and the recorded songs are described below using the following terminology: Pulse — a burst of sound energy approximately 0.0005 second in duration and containing multiple primary sound waves of approximately uniform periodicity; one pulse likely results from a single in- or out-click of a timbal, or both timbals clicked in synchrony. Echeme — a set of pulses arranged in a particular pattern. Phrase — one or more types of echeme arranged to form a particular pattern.

In most Cicadettini species studied, each song phrase contains at least one echeme that elicits a wing-flick reply from any receptive conspecific female. This is commonly the last echeme in the song phrase (e.g. Marshall et al., 2008; Marshall & Hill, 2009). While recording two focal Philipsalta nigrina males, the second author attracted and collected them by hand, by immediately responding to the terminal echemes of the call phrases with soft but sharp finger-snaps.

Male #1 produced 60 song phrases in groups of 6–9 at approximately one phrase per 0.8 second within groups (see Fig. 7 for an example song phrase). Male #2 produced longer phrases, 30 of them in groups of 2–6, at one phrase per 1.6 seconds within groups. Differences between the song cadences of the recorded males may reflect different motivational states caused by different distances of the singers from the responding recordist. Sound energy for both males was high-pitched (with a peak frequency of 14.7 and 15.2 kHz for male #1 and #2, respectively), with most energy (to -20 dB from peak) focused between 11 and 20 kHz (keeping in mind the limitations of the microphone).

Call phrases for both males contained a series of simple 3- to 4-pulse echemes produced with an accelerating rate to form a “zeet”, followed by a “buzz” echeme containing pulses that were produced at first erratically and then uniformly in rate, with both the amplitude and the dominant frequency increasing toward the end of the echeme ( Fig. 7 ). For male #1 above, the mean number of echemes in the “zeet” component was 6.7, produced over an average of 0.4 seconds, while the mean duration of the buzz was 0.15 seconds. For male #2, the “zeet” section contained an average of 20 echemes per phrase over a mean duration of 1.3 seconds, while the buzz lasted 0.27 seconds on average. The pulses of the buzz echeme were produced at approximately 340/second by male #1 (resolution was not sufficient to analyze male #2).

Figures

FIGURE 5. Philipsalta nigrina Lee, Marshall & Hill gen. & sp. nov., holotype, male, Dinagat. A, Dorsal habitus. B, Ventral habitus. C, Ventral view of the pygofer. D, Lateroventral view of the pygofer. E, Lateral view of the pygofer.

FIGURE 6. Philipsalta nigrina Lee, Marshall & Hill gen. & sp. nov., holotype, male, Dinagat. A, Head and thorax. B, Abdominal sternites. C, Operculum. D, Timbal.

FIGURE 7. One complete song phrase from male # 1 of Philipsalta nigrina Lee, Marshall & Hill gen. & sp. nov. recorded at the type locality in Dinagat. Ambient temperature 26.1 degrees Celsius. Annotations refer to structures discussed in the text. A, Waveform (oscillogram) of song phrase after excluding sound energy below 10 kHz. B, Waveform of partial segment of song phrase (see boundaries in A). C, Spectrogram of song phrase generated before filtering, using a Hann window of 155 samples, 49.7 % overlap, a DFT size of 256 samples, a Hop size of 78 samples, and a grid spacing of 188 Hz.