Phonarellus minor (Chopard, 1959)

Wang, Ning, Huang, Huateng & Ma, Li-Bin, 2022, The intraspecific variation of morphology and coloration of field crickets: a taxonomic revision of Chinese Gymnogryllus Saussure, 1877 and Phonarellus Gorochov, 1983 (Orthoptera, Gryllidae, Gryllini), ZooKeys 1129, pp. 85-107 : 85

Phonarellus minor (Chopard, 1959)

Figs 1A-C , 6 , 7 , 8

Gymnogryllus minor Chopard, 1959: 1; Bhowmik 1985: 14.

Gymnogryllus kashmirensis Bhowmik, 1977: 24, misidentification.

Phonarellus (Phonarellus) minor : Gorochov 1983: 91, 323-328; Kim and Pham 2014: 61; Gu et al. 2018: 11.

Phonarellus minor : Yin and Liu 1995: 138-139; Saeed et al. 2000: 176; Xie 2004: 116

Gymnogryllus (Phonarellus) minor : Ingrisch and Garai 2001: 759.

Phonarellus flavipes Xia et al., 1991: 123; Yin and Liu 1995: 49, syn. nov.

Holotype information.

Type locality: Asia-Tropical, Indian Subcontinent, India, Kerala, Malabar Coast, Mahé. Deposited at Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France (not examined).

Specimens examined.

China: 36 males and 28 females, Yunnan, Mengla, Shangyong, Longmen , 1030 m, May 13, 2013, Ma, Libin coll. (SNNU) ; 5 females, same location as before, 1030 m, May 18, 2013, Ma, Libin coll. (SNNU) ; 4 males and 4 females, same location as before, 943 m, May 13, 2013, Ma, Libin coll. (SNNU) ; 3 males, same location as before, 996 m, May 13, 2013, Ma, Libin coll. (SNNU) ; 1 male, Yunnan, Jinping, Mengla, Xinmeng , 450 m, May 3, 2013, Ma, Libin coll. (SNNU) ; 3 males, Yunnan, Mengla, Mengban, Hebianzhai , 855 m, May 23, 2013, Ma, Libin coll. (SNNU) ; 4 males, Yunnan, Mengla, Menglun , 690 m, May 28, 2013, Ma, Libin coll. (SNNU) ; 6 males, Yunnan, Cangyuan, Banlao , 1134 m, Jun. 5, 2013, Ma, Libin coll. (SNNU) ; 2 males, Yunnan, Hekou , 100 m, Jun. 7, 1982, Jin, Gentao coll. (SEM) ; 2 males and 1 female, Yunnan, Xishuangbanna, Menglun , 1000 m, Jun. 3, 2009, Liu, Xianwei coll. (SEM) ; 3 males and 2 females, Yunnan, Mengla, Yaoqu , Jun. 1, 2009, Ma, Libin coll. (NWAFU) . Vietnam: 1 female, Tonkin , Jul. 1940, A. De Cooman coll. (SEM) .

Distribution.

(Fig. 2 ). China (Yunnan, Guangdong), India, Vietnam.

Measurements.

BL 12.86-14.23; HW 3.54-3.75; PL 2.26-2.39; PW 4.12-4.56; FWL 9.13-9.68; HWL 7.45-8.23; MTL 3.24-3.46; CL 4.67-5.31; HTL 4.73-5.21; HLL 8.11-8.42; OL 7.28-7.64.

Diagnosis.

Body bicolored; head and legs often yellow or yellowish-brown, remainders always dark brown. Body size small for the genus. Both proximal and anterior notch of epiphallus arc-like and posterior notch almost right angular. Coloration of hind legs variable.

Description.

(Figs 1A-C , 8A-D, I ). Body sized small for the genus, fusiform. Frons rounded. Median ocellus small, oval; lateral ocelli larger and rounded. Epistomal suture slightly upward convex and sometimes almost straight. Rostrum slightly widened. Scapus about half as wide as rostrum. Labrum rounded and slightly laterally widened, with apical margin arc-like, sometimes straight or with notch. Last segment of maxillary palpi rod-like, nearly as wide as third segment.

Disc of pronotum laterally widened and with hind margin slightly wider than fore margin; anterior margin broadly concave, posterior margin almost straight. Oblique veins three, the outmost one short and two internal of them longer and inclined; the top of them close each other. Diagonal vein straight. Chord veins three, the internal two veins extremely bent, connected at the bottom. Between the diagonal vein and the most internal chord vein armed with a transverse vein. The most internal chord vein linking with mirror by two transverse veins. Mirror small; the basal margin of mirror angle-like, dividing vein angular and the width of mirror nearly equal to the length. Field area short, close to the length of mirror, or slightly longer than mirror. Hind wings long and the uncovered portions longer than the half-length of forewings.

Fore tibiae with inner tympanum small and ovoid; the outer one large and oblong. Hind tibiae short, half the length of hind femur. Inner dorsal spurs of hind tibiae curved distally and longer than the outer ones. The length and number of dorsal spurs varied, while the basal spurs rather short, they numbered five or six of both the inner and outer; while spurs vary in length, the number of inner and outer spurs always 4:4. Inner apical spurs longer than outer ones. The median one of outer apical spurs longest and the remaining ones almost equal in length, and the bottom one of inner apical spurs shortest and the remaining ones in similar length. Inner dorsal spines of the first hind tarsus numbered 5-7 and outer ones numbered 7-9. Cercus thickness proximally and tapering. Subgenital plate simple and cucullate with acute apex.

Genitalia (Fig. 8E-G ). Lateral lobes of epiphallus large. In lateral view apex obtuse and slightly upward curved. Epiphallus without median lobe, hind margin broad arc-like in middle, proximal margin arcuate, similar to outer margin. In caudal view, ectoparamere with three ridges, two horizontal and one vertical; area around ridges dark, and central area whitish.

Female (Fig. 8B, D, J ). Ovipositor short, arrow-like. Tegmina dark brown.

Coloration (Fig. 8A-D, H ). Head orange. Fore and median legs and hind tibiae yellowish-brown. Coloration of hind femur variable, either uniformly dark brown, or dark brown in middle and basal, and apical areas yellowish-brown or wholy yellowish-brown. Female’s forewings dark brown. Male’s forewings dark brown, but harp area and mirror light colored (these parts membranous and lucent). Cercus yellowish-brown with apical area dark brown.

Remarks.

The original description of P. flavipes does not mention genital characters. Xia et al. (1991) only pointed out that coloration of the hind femur and differences in the distance between the first and second oblique veins at the base could distinguish this species from P. minor . We showed that the distance at the base of oblique veins varies among individuals in P. minor (Figs 6 , 8I ). Moreover, the proportion of the black area on the hind femur also has a considerable amount of variation within P. minor (Fig. 7 ). The typical color scheme is 70% black (35% of the individuals), but more than 5% of the individuals have less than 10% or more than 95% of black area. The coloration of the hind femur is a continuous trait, and both extremes exist in P. minor . Hence, we consider that P. flavipes is a junior synonym of P. minor .

Figures

Figure 1. Living photos of some Phonarellus and Gymnogryllus species A, B male of P. minor (with varing proportion of black areas on hind legs) C female of P. minor D male of P. ritsemae E male of G. odonopetalus F female of G. odonopetalus (Photos A-D were provided by Zhang, Tao, and E, F were photographed by He, Zhixin).

Figure 2. Distributions of Phonarellus and Gymnogryllus in China (Note: the locality of P. zebripes cited from Liu and He (2022), and the remaining location information is based on the data of examined materials).

Figure 6. Distance between the first and second oblique vein of P. minor (Note: The data in the graph were measured from 42 samples. All the data can be roughly divided into three groups: distance less than 0.6 mm, distance greater than 1.2 mm, and distance between 0.7 mm and 1 mm, among which, individuals with distance less than 0.6 mm are the majority. The figure of the veins on the right, from top to bottom, represents the maximum, median and minimum distances, respectively. Units: mm).

Figure 7. This figure shows that the distribution of the area-to-total area ratio of the black area of P. minor (Note: The data in the graph were measured from 42 samples. In the figure, miscellaneous colors, i. e., individuals with black proportions between 30 % and 90 %, accounted for the majority, while light-colored individuals, i. e., individuals with black proportions no higher than 20 %, and black individuals, i. e., individuals with black proportions higher than 90 %, were very few and only one in our sampling respectively.).

Figure 8. Phonarellus minor (Chopard, 1959) (A-J) A-D bodies of P. minor (A, C males B, D females; scale bar: 10 mm A, B specimens with dark colored hind legs C, D specimens with light-colored hind legs) E-G genitalia (E dorsally viewed F laterally viewed G ventrally viewed) H color variation of hind legs from dark to light I variable intervals at the base of oblique veins (Note: The red line point to the first and second oblique veins. The distance between the two veins in the rightmost figure is the smallest (see Fig. 6, i. e., less than 0.6 mm), and the sampled individual has black hind legs (see Fig. 7, i. e., the percentage of black is higher than 90 %); the distance between the two veins in the middle figure is the largest (see Fig. 6, i. e., greater than 1.2 mm), and the sampled individual has miscellaneous colored hind legs (see Fig. 7, i. e., 30 % - 90 % black); the distance between the two veins in the rightmost figure is medium (Fig. 6, i. e. 0.7 mm- 1 mm), and the hind legs of the sampled individuals are light colored (Fig. 7, i. e. the percentage of black is less than 20 %). Combining the information in Figs 6, 7, it can be inferred that the change in veins distance does not correlate entirely with the variation in the color of the hind legs) J ovipositor.