Hexocera Hancock, 1915

Muhammad, Amira Aqilah, Tan, Ming Kai, Abdullah, Nurul Ashikin, Azirun, Mohammad Sofian, Bhaskar, Dhaneesh & Skejo, Josip, 2018, An annotated catalogue of the pygmy grasshoppers of the tribe Scelimenini Bolívar, 1887 (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae) with two new Scelimena species from the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, Zootaxa 4485 (1), pp. 1-70 : 32-33

Genus Hexocera Hancock, 1915

syn. nov. of Scelimena

Hexocera: Hancock 1915 , Günther 1938a, Blackith 1992, Yin et al. 1996, Otte 1997.

Type species: Acridium hexodon Haan, 1843 .

Composition and distribution. Monotypic genus with its only species ( H. hexodon ) inhabiting Borneo.

Notes. The genus is synonymous with Scelimena . This monotypic genus included only H. hexodon (de Haan, 1843) , characteristic in extremely high pronotal projection, forming strong and sharp spines. The genus shares all the morphological characters with Scelimena . S. hexodon comb. resurr. ( Fig. 11 ) is restricted to Borneo, and Blackith's (1992) record of the species for Sumatra was not confirmed. However, in Sumatra, a new species is found ( Scelimena marta sp. nov.) closely related to S. hexodon . Since the presence of the large spines is the only character separating Hexocera from Scelimena (and it is not really separating character), we synonymize Hexocera syn. nov. with Scelimena . Borneo is inhabited by a few species with pronotal projection much larger than in their congers (e.g., Discotettix belzebuth , Tegotettix armatus ), and so S. hexodon also have the largest spines within the genus.

Figures

FIGURE 11. Alive Scelimena hexodon (Haan, 1843) comb. nov. from Tawau Hills Park (Malaysia: Borneo: Sabah). Photograph by Chun Xing Wong Claveria, reproduced with photographer's permission.