Micronecta ( Basileonecta ) scutellaris (Stål, 1858)

Cianferoni, Fabio & Dia, Aref, 2025, Annotated catalogue and checklist of Gerromorpha, Nepomorpha, and Leptopodomorpha (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) of Lebanon, with new records, Zootaxa 5725 (1), pp. 1-54 : 21-22

Micronecta ( Basileonecta) scutellaris (Stål, 1858)

= Micronecta ( Basileonecta) scutellaris pubescens Hutchinson, 1940 syn. nov.

Material examined. Survey material: Basin of Litani: Litani at Jisr (= bridge) El Khardalé, 11.XI.2005, 1 ♂ macr., CFC .

General distribution. Very widespread species occurring from Africa to Oriental Region (see Jansson 1995).

Remarks. Already known for surrounding countries in the Middle East, e.g. Syria, Jordan, Israel (see Jansson 1995, Katbeh et al. 2000, Aukema et al. 2013). First record for Lebanon.

Taxonomic note. Hutchinson (1940) described a subspecies of M. scutellaris from South Africa, naming it M. scutellaris pubescens , because of the pronotum markedly pubescent and, secondly, the anterior margin of the head “slightly” more inflated, in comparison with the nominotypical form. Since Hutchinson (1940) stated that the pubescence varies among populations in South Africa and that some South African individuals are similar to Central African ones, this taxon does not appear justified. The same author added that “the subspecies may be regarded as an extreme development of the species in the southwestern part of South Africa ”, but in a sentence before he refers to the same as “the form with a markedly pubescent pronotum”, so it seems to be merely a populational cline. This taxon cannot be maintained in view of the modern concept of subspecies (see Mayr 1963, 1969; Patten and Unitt 2002), in fact it is neither diagnosably distinct nor completely geographically circumscribed (see Patten 2015), thus here we established the new synonymy: Micronecta ( Basileonecta) scutellaris pubescens Hutchinson, 1940 syn. nov. of Sigara scutellaris Stål, 1858 . Therefore, we can finally avoid the use of the nominotypical subspecies for M. scutellaris .

The repository of the holotype is unknown (not specified in the original publication). Search attempts made so far have been unsuccessful. The type material does not seem to be in the collections of BMNH ( Diana Isabel Rendón-Mera , pers. com., 19 June 2025) , nor at YPM (Lawrence F. Gall, pers. com., 19 June 2025), TMSA ( Tharina Bird, pers. com., 26 June 2025) , WLSM (James du G. Harrison, pers. com., 20 June 2025), or SANC ( Beth Grobbelaar, pers. com., 24 June 2025) .