Stenopelmatus, Burmeister, 1838

Weissman, David B., Song, Hojun & Vandergast, Amy G., 2024, Phylogenomics, male internal genitalia, a new species, and other notes on New World Stenopelmatus Jerusalem crickets (Orthoptera: Stenopelmatoidea: Stenopelmatini), Zootaxa 5443 (2), pp. 237-252 : 239-240

Non- Stenopelmatus additions to our 2017 data set

OSF ( Cigliano et al. 2024) considers the “Jerusalem cricket” family Stenopelmatidae to contain one subfamily ( Stenopelmatinae ). In contrast Gorochov (2021) considers the Stenopelmatidae to contain three subfamilies ( Stenopelmatinae , Schizodactylinae, and Gryllacridinae ). Both references agree with each other that the Stenopelmatinae contain the same four or five tribes. Two of these tribes were discussed in Vandergast et al. (2017), where we sequenced three species of the South African genus Maxentius (Tribe Maxentiini , and all labeled as Sia species in our 2017 paper), and recovered them as closest relatives of the New World JC genera Stenopelmatus and Ammopelmatus (Tribe Stenopelmatini ). In our current study, with the addition ( Fig. 1 ) of Sia ferox Giebel (Tribe Siini ), from Java; and Oryctopterus varuna Hiremath & Prathapan (Tribe Oryctopterini ), from India, these latter two genera are now recovered in a clade with South African Maxentius , and closest to a clade containing the Anostostomatidae genera Lezina , Glaphyrosoma , and Cnemotettix . But, with the addition of this new material, we found that the three Old World Stenopelmatinae tribes form a distinct clade which does not share the most recent common ancestor with the New World JCs. This renders Stenopelmatidae paraphyletic.

The anostostomatid relationship found in Fig. 1 , between New World Glaphyrosoma and Cnemotettix , and Old World Lezina , was previously reported in Vandergast et al. (2017) when only 3 genes were analyzed. With our current analysis of 1,236 genes, these latter three genera again form a monophyletic group, which does not share the most recent common ancestor with other anostostomatids included in the analysis. Based on this finding, we consider Anostostomatidae paraphyletic.

Lastly, we note that our two splay-footed cricket samples (genus Comicus ) are recovered in Fig. 1 , distinct from all other Stenopelmatidae ; a situation also found by Vandergast et al. (2017). This finding is not surprising (see discussion in Vandergast et al., 2017, p. 27 & 28), given that the only karyotyped, splay-footed cricket, Schizodactylus monstrosus (Drury) ( McClung & Asana 1933) , is known to have all rod-shaped chromosomes, including both sex chromosomes. This finding contrasts with the entire superfamily Stenopelmatoidea ( Vandergast et al. 2017) , where all examined species have some metacentric autosomes, and always a metacentric X chromosome. Despite this information, Gorochov (2021) continues to place the splay-footed crickets as a subfamily (Schizodactylinae) within the family Stenopelmatidae , while dismissing overwhelming evidence from molecular and cytological data.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Orthoptera-specific target enrichment (OR-TE) analysis. We find both families Anostostomatidae and Stenopelmatidae (as indicated by an *) to be paraphyletic. Family Schizodactylidae is shown to be distantly related to both Anostostomatidae and Stenopelmatidae.