Neoperla crustata, Zwick & Zwick, 2023

Zwick, Peter & Zwick, Andreas, 2023, Revision of the African Neoperla Needham, 1905 (Plecoptera: Perlidae: Perlinae) based on morphological and molecular data, Zootaxa 5316 (1), pp. 1-194 : 79

31. Neoperla crustata n. sp.

( Figs. 174–176 )

Type material: ♁ holotype, Republic of Guinea, piège lumineuse, sans étiquette (slide Z16/66; NEOP073 ; SMNS, gift J. M.Élouard) .

Paratypes: Republic of Mali: 3♁: Niger à Bamako [12.39°N, 8.00°W, 487m] 14.10.1984 J.M.Gibon; 2♁, ibidem, 14.9.94, F. Niger ( SMNS, slides Z16/53+54) .

Habitus. WL 8.8–10.0mm. Ochre colour, legs brownish, wings infuscate. A kidney-shaped black ring around each ocellus.

Male ( Figs. 174–176 ). Generally similar to N. pilulifera n. sp. but triangular projection of T7 short. T8 flat, front as wide as the T7 process above it, narrowing caudally, with some SB. T9 unmodified, pilose humps not much raised above median furrow. Hemitergal callus tongue-shaped, tip of HT sinuous, short, sharp apex pointing forward. Hind tibiae unmodified.

Penis straight, stout, tube distally wide, knee-shaped when endophallus is everted ( Figs. 174, 176 ), distal armature variable. Basal half of endophallus bare, near midlength some large dorsal spines, the inflated bulbous distal third with numerous small spines in regular rows, tip in the form of a short nipple. Sides of endophallus bare, ventrally some spines in a short row. In the holotype, basolateral, dorsolateral, and dorsodistal spine groups on the outside of the penis tube are distinguishable, the other specimens have small plates, each with a projecting short spine, forming a dorsodistal crust ( Fig. 175 ).

Female. Unknown.

Egg. Unknown.

DNA ( Figs. 491–492 , 494). Only the male holotype from Guinea was sequenced with the genome-skimming approach, resulting in 9,237bp of mitochondrial, protein-coding genes. This species is very strongly supported (56.4/97/98) as sister to N. amoena n. sp. + N. pilulifera n. sp..

Etymology. The Latin adjective crustata , encrusted, refers to the extended dorsodistal spine patches on the penis.

Figures

FIGURE 491. Codon-model maximum likelihood phylogram based on 83 largely complete mitochondrial genome sequences only (mt-NT). Statistical support values (SH-aLRT, UFBoot) from this and other analyses summarised by squares as explained in the figure. Terminal labels include information on the species, type status, gender, originating country, unique sequence identifier (NEOP###), sequencing approach and total basepairs of 13 mitochondrial, protein-coding genes. Clades of particular interest highlighted with colours that correspond to the clades in other trees. HT = holotype; PT = paratype; PCR = Polymerase Chaine Reaction; WGS = Whole Genome Shotgun.

FIGURE 492. Simplified overview of codon-model maximum likelihood phylogram based on 356 mitochondrial genome and COX1 DNA barcode sequences (all-NT). Terminal labels include information on the species only. Clades of particular interest highlighted with colours that correspond to the clades in other trees. The full tree is shown in Figs 493-498.

FIGURES 169–176. ♁♁ in the Neoperla pilulifera-complex. N. pilulifera n. sp.: 169, 170, abdominal tip, dorsal and lateral, semi-diagrammatic, tergites and hemitergite 10 labelled; 171, contracted, 172, everted penis; 173, distal half of penis tube and base of endophallus (holotype ♁): all from Bayanga. N. crustata n. sp.: 174, 175, ♁ from Mali, Niger at Bamako; by transparency of the slide mount the basal end of the distodorsal spine group seems to overlap with the far distally displaced basolateral spine group (encircled); 176, holotype from Guinea (NEOP073). 174 and 178 to the same, other figures not to scale. bbs, bare basal stretch; bl, basolateral, dd, distodorsal, dl, distolateral spines.