Phymonotus Lightfoot, Weissman and Ueshima

Lightfoot, David C., Weissman, David B. & Ueshima, Norihiro, 2011, Phymonotus jacintotopos: A new genus and species of shield-backed katydid (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Tettigoniinae: Nedubini) from the San Jacinto Mountains of California, USA, Zootaxa 2937, pp. 49-65 : 50

Phymonotus Lightfoot, Weissman and Ueshima new genus

Type species. Phymonotus jacintotopos Lightfoot, Weissman and Ueshima , here designated.

Diagnosis and description. See Table 1 . Known only from San Jacinto Mountains, Riverside Co., California ( Fig 3 ). As with other Nedubini world-wide, Phymonotus males possess modified and enlarged paraprocts, or pseudocerci, that extend posteriorly from beneath the supra-anal plate or tergum 10, and which function as clasping organs ( Rentz and Colless, 1990). The supra-anal plate, or epiproct, of Phymonotus males is unique among North American Nedubini in that it is hour-glass shaped. Phymonotus is most similar and closely related to the endemic North American genera Agalothorax and Neduba , and can be separated from the latter two genera by a combination of characters presented in Table 1 , including obvious features such as a dome-shaped metazona, two lateral lobes on each side of the pronotum, concave posterior margin of the metazona, calling song, and the apical indentation of the female subgenital plate. As with Agalothorax and Neduba , Phymonotus possesses an enlarged metazonal pronotal disk relative to other Tettigoniinae genera. However, in Phymonotus this disk is uniquely shaped, being considerably dorsally elevated and dome-shaped with a concave posterior margin. The dome of the metazona of Phymonotus includes both the dorsal disk and the lateral lobes, and is more pronounced in males than females. The height of the metazona in adult male Phymonotus averages 1.6 times the height of the prozona, while the height of the metazona in female Phymonotus and both sexes of Neduba and Agalothorax is close to equal to the height of the prozona. The pronotum of Phymonotus males has two lateral lobes, one on the prozona, and another on the metazona, unlike Agalothorax and Neduba males that have one lateral lobe shared by both the prozona and metazona. We name and describe the male dorsal and ventral lobes of the titillators (referenced as fleshy lobes but not named by Rentz and Gurney (1985)), and the dorsal sclerites of the titillators (see species description below). All three genera possess both dorsal and ventral lobes of the titillators. The dorsal lobes of the titillators in Agalothorax and Neduba are simple soft membranes that lack dorsal sclerites. In contrast, Phymonotus possesses dorsal sclerites of the titillators, which are developed as a sclerotized bi-lobed structure on the dorsal lobes of the titillators. All three genera possess ventral lobes of the titillators. In Agalothorax the ventral lobes possess sclerotized teeth, and in Neduba the ventral lobes possess ventral sclerites ( Rentz and Birchim 1968). In contrast, Phymonotus lacks any sclerotized structures on the ventral lobes of the titillators.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Map of the San Jacinto Mountains, Riverside Co., in southern California, open squares (□) marking the known localities of Phymonotus jacintotopos Gen. et sp. nov. The southern-most location is the type locality.