Rhabdoblatta Kirby, 1903

Mbia, Donald-L’or Nyame, Ngon, Eric Belmond Biram à, Legendre, Frédéric & Menbohan, Samuel Foto, 2024, Semi-aquatic Epilamprinae cockroaches (Blattodea: Blaberidae) in Cameroon: towards a revision of continental African species of Rhabdoblatta Kirby, 1903 and Africalolampra Roth, 1995, European Journal of Taxonomy 946 (1), pp. 1-57 : 24

Genus Rhabdoblatta Kirby, 1903

Type species

Rhabdoblatta praecipua ( Walker, 1868) .

Diagnosis and history

This genus is composed of more than 150 species distributed in Asia and Africa ( Beccaloni 2014), and is known to be polyphyletic (e.g., Legendre et al. 2017; Yang et al. 2019; Wang et al. 2023). Clarifying its delineation is not within the aim of this manuscript. The latest diagnosis of the genus was given in Yang et al. (2019), but that diagnosis might rely mainly on Asian species and may not fit well with some African species (e.g., the widest part of the pronotum is not necessarily in the middle). The following African species share the diagnostic features of Rhabdoblatta but not those of Africalolampra : Rhabdoblata punctulata ( Saussure, 1891) has serrated claws but two styli and no tergal gland, R. parva ( Chopard, 1952) has two styli, unserrated claws and a tergal specialization on the 7 th tergite, R. lynceae ( Gerstaecker, 1883) has slightly serrated claws but two styli and a tergal specialization on the 5 th tergite, R. pluriramosa ( Karny, 1915) has two styli, unserrated claws and no tergal gland, and the female has brachypterous wings, R. pallida ( Borg, 1902) has one stylus and serrated claws but a tergal specialization at the junction of the 8 th and 9 th tergites, R. punctipennis (Saussure, 1895) has one stylus and slightly serrated claws but no tergal specialization, R. fotoi sp. nov. has serrated claws but two styli and a tergal gland on the 4 th abdominal tergite.

For the following African species of Rhabdoblatta , their original descriptions did not mention all the diagnostic characters or were based on female specimens only, so that it is premature to envision any taxonomic change or confirmation: Rhabdoblatta cincta ( Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1865) , R. trilobata ( Saussure, 1891) , R. usambarensis ( Rehn, 1931) , R. malagassa ( Saussure & Zehntner, 1895) and R. wittei ( Jolivet, 1954) . Note that the type specimen of R. usambarensis ( Rehn, 1931) is supposed to be deposited in the Berlin Zoological Museum but it was impossible to locate this specimen. As for R. wittei ( Jolivet, 1954) , the description mentions tegmina that do not extend beyond the 3 rd tergite (sex not specified).