Tmethis harterti Uvarov, 1923

Massa, Bruno, 2013, Pamphagidae (Orthoptera: Caelifera) of North Africa: key to genera and the annotated check-list of species, Zootaxa 3700 (3), pp. 435-475 : 439

Tmethis harterti Uvarov, 1923 new status

Material examined. Libya: Merg (Benghasi) (type locality) 10.IV, 2 ♂, 2 ♀ (MNCN); Ain Mara, 1 ♂, 1 ♀; Benghasi, 1 ♂; Tolemais, 1 ♂; Apollonia, 1 ♀; Cyrene, 2 ♂, 2 ♀ (MZR); 60 km East Sirte 6. IV.98, 2 ♂, 1 ♀; Tolemais 24. IV.05, 1 ♂, 1 ♀; Agedabia 6. IV.98, 2 ♀; Berta II.38, 1 ♀ (BMCP); Gheddaia 16. V.39, 1 ♂, 2 ♀; Rus Hamra, 4 ♂; Tobruk IV.14, 1 ♀ (MSNG).

Described from Merg (Cyrenaica, Libya), its characteristics are the shortness of tegmina, mainly in the female (where they just exceed the middle of femurs) ( Figs. 50–51), the faintly bluish colour inside of hind wings ( Figs. 58 a– 58 b), hind tibiae uniformly red, inside of hind femurs vinaceous-red, darker towards the base, but without a definite spot. Salfi (1926) disposed of many specimens of this taxon and observed that the blue colour of wings may be variable and much soften, with very small brown spots. In addition, he pointed out that male tegmina may reach the abdomen apex. I examined further specimens coming from Cyrenaica, other than those cited by Salfi (1926), finding a variability in the tibiae colour and length of male tegmina, but I found in all the females very abbreviated tegmina, as they were detected by Uvarov (1943) only in the type locality (Merg); a female with this characteristics has been detected by Ajaili & Usmani (1999) in Fezzan and named as T. cisti khaledi . When tegmina are abbreviated, hind wings are always shorter than tegmina, and the brown spot in the hind wings is more or less faint. However, the structure of hind border of pronotum in this taxon is similar to that of T. maroccanus (parabolic), and pronotum keel is more or less similar to that of T. cisti ( Figs. 34, 50– 51). Biometrics show the general shortness of female tegmina ( Table 1). This taxon lives only in Cyrenaica and Fezzan, and I believe that it could be considered a valid species, that overlaps with T. cisti in Cyrenaica (cf. T. cisti barcaeus Salfi, 1926 ).