Saga syriaca Lucas, 1864

Şirin, Deniz, Taylan, Mehmet Sait, Sevgili, Hasan & Mol, Abbas, 2019, Bioacoustics review of Anatolian species of the predatory bush-cricket genus Saga (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Saginae) with the description of a new species, Zootaxa 4664 (1), pp. 83-102 : 90-91

Saga syriaca Lucas, 1864

Distribution: This species was recorded from Anatolia, Syria and Iraq ( Kirby 1906; Kaltenbach 1964, 1967). The distribution of species in Anatolia is concentrated mostly in South-Eastern part ( Figure 7A ) of it ( Kaltenbach 1967; Mol et al. 2016).

Song recording: Male specimens collected from Turkey, Urfa, Bozova, Gülbiten Avenue, N: 37°23.09, E: 38°31.47, 650 m, 16. V.2018, leg.: D. Şirin, and the calling songs are recorded from one male at 29 ˚C in the labora- tory conditions (by D. Şirin), Urfa, Göbeklitepe, N 37°13.20’, E 038°55.14’, 763 m, 03. VI.2008, leg.: H. Sevgili, and the calling songs are recorded from one male at 30 ˚C in the room conditions (by H. Sevgili).

Description of song: Twelve records from two males were examined. The calling song consists of phrases ( Figure 7B ) with irregular intervals. Phrase durations vary between 0.48 and 0.61 s (0.55 ± 0.04), and each phrase contains 23–28 syllables (24.91 ± 1.67). The phrase generally begins with a first loud hemisyllable, which is longer than ordinary syllables and lasts for 14.72–21.77 ms (16.84 ± 1.87). The phrase starts with lower amplitudes syllables and reaches maximum amplitude (generally corresponds to 1/2–1/3 of phrase) with low gradual increase ( Figure 7C ). The remaining syllables in the phrase have quite similar amplitude. The oscillographic analyses show that syllable periods duration varies between 14.00 and 32.11 ms (20.81 ± 2.19), and each syllable has a standard structure which is formulated as loud and long opening hemisyllable + soft and short closing hemisyllable ( Figure 7D ). The opening hemisyllables duration varies between 5.54 and 21.83 ms (11.75 ± 1.83) while closing hemisyllable lasts for 6.53–14.05 ms (9.09 ± 1.10). The phrase ends irregularly with last hemisyllable, which has a shorter duration and a low amplitude than the previous hemisyllables in phrase and its duration varies between 4.01and 6.03 ms (4.76 ± 0.51).

Figures

FIGURE 7. Distribution map (A) and male calling song of Saga syriaca (B—phrase series, C—two complete phrases and D—a group of syllables, black arrow is the hypothetic opening hemisyllable movement and grey arrow is the hypothetic closing hemisyllable movement).