Occinirvanini Evans, 1966

Zahniser, James N. & Dietrich, Chris H., 2013, A review of the tribes of Deltocephalinae (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadellidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 45, pp. 1-211 : 119-121

Occinirvanini Evans, 1966

Fig. 37

Type genus: Occinirvana Evans, 1941 .

Diagnosis

Occinirvanini are medium sized, elongate, bizarrely shaped, ivory and orange colored leafhoppers, with some fuscous coloration on the forewing apex. They can be identified by the elongate head, ocelli on the crown, ocelli very distant from eyes, foliaceous anterior margin of the head, very long antennae, antennal bases situated very high on the face anterad of the eyes, face strongly concave, and metatarsomere I plantar surface with platellae.

Description

HEAD. Head subequal to or wider than pronotum; strongly produced, elongate. Discal portion of crown shagreen. Anterior margin of head foliaceous. Face strongly concave. Frontoclypeus not tumid; texture shagreen. Clypellus widening apically; apex following or slightly surpassing normal curve of gena. Lorum subequal to or wider than clypellus near base. Antennal bases near upper part of face, anterad of eyes. Antennae very long, 3-4 x width of head or longer; scape and pedicel large. Gena obtusely incised laterally; hirsute, with many fine hairs (difficult to interpret presence/absence of fine erect seta). Antennal ledges absent. Ocelli present; distant from eyes, closer to crown apex than to adjacent eye; on crown.

THORAX. Pronotum not exceeding eyes anteriorly, lateral margin not carinate; lateral margin longer than basal width of eye.

WINGS. Forewing macropterous; appendix restricted to anal margin; with 3 anteapical cells; veins not raised; without reflexed costal veins; A1-A2 crossvein absent; apical venation not highly reticulate.

LEGS. Profemur short, stout; with AM1 seta only; intercalary row with one row of five or more fine setae; row AV without setae or with few short, stout setae. Protibia dorsal surface flat, AD and PD margins at ~90º angles but not carinate. Metafemur apex macrosetae 2+2+1. Metatarsomere I not expanded apically; plantar surface with one or more platellae.

MALE GENITALIA. Valve articulated with pygofer; lateral margin short, articulating with pygofer at a point. Pygofer basolateral membranous cleft present; macrosetae well differentiated into several rows; without dorsal or ventral processes; subrectangular in shape. Subgenital plates free from each other, articulated with valve; with single row of macrosetae distant from lateral margin; apex with ~5-7 spaced macrosetae; lateral margin with numerous short thin or thick setae. Style broadly bilobed basally, median anterior lobe pronounced; apophysis with subapical dorsal tooth. Basal processes of the aedeagus/connective absent. Aedeagus with single shaft and gonopore; with “dorsal connective” articulated with dorsal part of socle. Connective anterior arms somewhat divergent, Y -shaped; stem present, 2 x length of anterior arms; articulated with aedeagus. Segment X not strongly sclerotized.

FEMALE GENITALIA. Pygofer with numerous macrosetae. Ovipositor not protruding far beyond pygofer apex. First valvula convex; dorsal sculpturing pattern strigate to reticulate; sculpturing submarginal; without distinctly delimited ventroapical sculpturing. Second valvula broad; gradually tapered; without dorsal median tooth; teeth on apical 1/3 or more; teeth small, regularly or irregularly shaped.

Geography and ecology

Distribution: Western Australia. The only known species, Occinirvana eborea Evans, 1941 , has been collected on Casuarina .

Remarks

Occinirvanini contains only the type genus with one species. The male genitalia of Occinirvana are illustrated and described here for the first time, and the phylogenetic analyses here are the first to include molecular data for the tribe. The male genitalia are for the most part typical for Deltocephalinae . The pattern of setae on the subgenital plate and the dorsal connective are somewhat unique. The characters of the male do not obviously suggest a relationship with other deltocephaline tribes or genera, but the molecular data very strongly supported a relationship with Loralia (Athysanini) , another Australianendemic genus. The clade is placed in slightly different positions among the different analyses but always basal to the large derived deltocephaline clade shown in Fig. 3b . Despite this intriguing result, no unique morphological synapomorphies could be identified that would unite these two genera in a common tribe. Further study of these and other unique Australian taxa (e.g., Euleimonios Kirkaldy, 1906 , Gunawardenea Fletcher & Moir, 2008 and Occiplanocephalus Evans, 1941 ) should be conducted to explore their relationships to each other and to other Deltocephalinae , particularly since these three genera have some unique features of the male genitalia in common with Loralia (but not with Occinirvana ). For now, Occinirvanini is retained as a monotypic tribe pending further study.

Selected references

Evans (1966), Dietrich (2004).

Included genera

Occinirvana Evans, 1941

Figures

Fig. 37. Occinirvanini. Occinirvana eborea Evans, 1941. A–I. Standard views (see Material & Methods). A1. ♀ (BMNH). A2, B. ♂. J. Broad view of subgenital plate. K. Lateral view of apical half of style.

Fig. 3a. Top portion of the strict consensus of 224 MP trees. Numbers above branches are MP bootstrap / total Bremer support values. Numbers below branches are partitioned Bremer support values for 28S / indel / Histone H3 / morphology data sets. The revised classification is given to the right.