Kana Distant, 1908

Dietrich, Christopher H., 2023, A new species of Kana Distant representing the first record of Evacanthinae (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) from Madagascar, Zootaxa 5319 (1), pp. 127-134 : 128

Kana Distant

Kana Distant, 1908: 285 ; Type species: Kana thoracica Distant, 1908 .

Yaoundea Linnavuori, 1979: 964 . Type species: Yaoundea semela Linnavuori, 1979 (synonymy by Wang et al. 2017b: 440).

Diagnosis. Species of Kana may be distinguished from other Nirvanini by the following combination of traits: dorsal coloration mostly pale yellow with black markings absent or limited to few narrow lines or small spots; crown flat or concave, glabrous, longer than wide, median carina not elevated; forewing venation well delimited, R with two branches; hind wing vein R2+3 present along costal margin (4 apical cells present); male pygofer with ventral process well developed; subgenital plate digitiform with ventral row of macrosetae; aedeagus without dorsal apodeme, distal part of shaft often strongly curved ventrad.

Notes. Eleven of the 12 previously described species of Kana are apparently restricted to the Indomalayan region, occurring from India and Sri Lanka to the Philippines. The single recorded African species was originally described in a separate monotypic genus, Yaoundea Linnavuori , subsequently synonymized with Kana by Wang et al. (2017b). Species of the genus are rarely encountered and most are known only from type material ( Linnavuori 1979, Viraktamath & Wesley 1988, Viraktamath 1992). Although Kana (including junior synonym Yaoundea ) was recovered as monophyletic in the analysis of Wang et al. (2017a), their dataset included only two representatives of the genus. Kana , as presently constituted, is somewhat heterogeneous morphologically in head structure, color pattern and male genitalia, although species can be reliably placed in the genus by the combination of diagnostic traits listed above. The new species from Madagascar described below resembles Kana decora (Melichar) , previously known only from the female type from Sri Lanka, in coloration and head morphology. Further analyses incorporating larger numbers of species are needed to confirm the status and relationships of the genus.