Acinopterini Oman , 1943

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 : 29-31

Acinopterini Oman, 1943

Fig. 8

Type genus: Acinopterus Van Duzee, 1892 .

Diagnosis

Acinopterini are medium sized, yellowish, greenish, orange, or brown leafhoppers. They can be identified by the straight commissural margin of the forewing, forewing apices not overlapping, forewing appendix absent or reduced, connective bar-shaped or plate-like, style slender (not broadly bilobed), and female first valvula strongly curved.

Description

HEAD. Head distinctly narrower than pronotum ( Acinopterus ) or subequal to or wider than pronotum ( Cariancha ). Discal portion of crown glabrous with radial or longitudinal striae. Anterior margin of head shagreen. Frontoclypeus not tumid; texture shagreen. Clypellus widening apically. Clypellus apex following or slightly surpassing normal curve of gena. Lorum subequal to or wider than clypellus near base. Antennal bases near middle or posteroventral (lower) corners of eyes. Antennae short, less than 1.5 x width of head. Gena obtusely incised laterally; with fine erect seta beside laterofrontal suture. Antennal ledge weakly developed (carinate or weakly carinate). Ocelli present; close to eyes; on anterior margin of head.

THORAX. Pronotum lateral margin carinate; lateral margin shorter than basal width of eye.

WINGS. Forewing macropterous; with commissural margin straight; apex acuminate; appendix absent or reduced; with 3 anteapical cells; veins not raised; without reflexed costal veins; A1-A2 crossvein absent.

LEGS. Profemur with AM1 seta only or with one or more additional proximal setae; intercalary row with one row of five or more fine setae; row AV with relatively long macrosetae. Protibia dorsal surface rounded, convex. Metafemur apex macrosetae 2+2+1. Metatarsomere I not expanded apically; plantar setae simple, tapered.

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. Subgenital plates free from each other; articulated with valve; without macrosetae. Style linear, median anterior lobe not pronounced. Basal processes of the aedeagus present, fused to base of aedeagus. Aedeagus with single shaft and gonopore. Connective anterior arms widely divergent; bar-shaped or plate-like; articulated with aedeagus.

FEMALE GENITALIA. Pygofer with numerous macrosetae. Ovipositor not protruding far beyond pygofer apex. First valvula convex; dorsal sculpturing pattern strigate, concatenate, reticulate, or imbricate (with overlapping scales); sculpturing reaching dorsal margin; without distinctly delimited ventroapical sculpturing. Second valvula abruptly broadened medially or subapically or broad, gradually tapered apically; without dorsal median tooth; teeth on apical 1/3 or more; teeth small, regularly or irregularly shaped.

Geography and ecology

Distribution: Nearctic, Neotropical. Acinopterus species live in meadows, grasslands, and in forest understories and feed on a variety of herbaceous dicots. Acinopterus angulatus Lawson, 1922 is a vector of the western strain of aster yellows and western X disease.

Remarks

Acinopterini contains 2 genera and 30 species. Acinopterus (28 spp.) is widely distributed from North to South America and Cariancha (2 spp.) is known only from Brazil. This is an early-diverging tribe of Deltocephalinae and it possesses plesiomorphic characters of the male genitalia. Among the other early-diverging lineages of Deltocephalinae , the 28S rDNA sequence of Acinopterus was updated to include sequences only from A. acuminatus Van Duzee, 1892 (previously a chimeric sequence of A. acuminatus and A. viridis Ball, 1903 was used) and the D2 region of Luheria was included for the first time. However, these changes did little to resolve the relationships between Acinopterini and the other early-diverging deltocephaline tribes, Stegelytrini , Acostemmini, Luheriini and Fieberiellini . Future analyses should include more representatives of these tribes and representatives of Cariancha to facilitate further understanding of their relationships.

Selected references

Beamer & Lawson (1938), Oman (1949), Linnavuori & DeLong (1977), Cwikla & Ma (1986).

Included Genera

Acinopterus Van Duzee, 1892 .

Cariancha Oman, 1938 .

Figures

Fig. 8. Acinopterini. Acinopterus acuminatus Van Duzee, 1892. A–I. Standard views (see Material & Methods). J. ♂ pygofer, ventral view.