Mesovelia orientalis Kirkaldy

Usinger, Robert L., 1946, Hemiptera Heteroptera of Guam, Insects of Guam II, Honolulu, Hawaii: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Bulletin 189, pp. 11-103 : 92

86. Mesovelia orientalis Kirkaldy , Mus. Civ. Stor. Nat. Genova, Ann. II, 20: 808, 1901. (See figure 25 , b.)

Two specimens, Agana Swamp, May 2, Usinger; seven specimens, Agana Swamp, May 4, Usinger; all apterous. The May 2 specimens are darker in color than the others. These agree well with a specimen collected by me at Montalban, Luzon, Philippine Islands, July 14, 1936, and with two specimens before me from Garoet, Java, collected by Linsley. The middle femora have a row of short spines on the under side and the eighth abdominal segment in the male has a clump of short spines on the middle of the ventral surface and a clump of long hairs on either side. The second segment of the hind tarsi is longer than the third, the rostrum scarcely reaches to the level of the front margins of the hind coxae and the last two antenna! segments are subequal (or the last slightly longer) and less than twice as long as the second segment. The apical arm of the male clasper is shorter and broader basally and thus appears subtriangular, rather than long and tapering as figured by Lundblad (Arch. Hydrobiol. Suppl. 12: 187, 1933),.but the form of these claspers is known to vary within wide limits (Usinger, Brooklyn Ent. Soc., Bull. 37: 177-178, 1943) so a new species does not seem to be justified. The claspers are long and tapering and bent apically in both the Philippine and Javanese specimens, but slight variations in form are apparent. M. orientalis is known elsewhere from India and Ceylon through the East Indies to New Guinea, the Philippines, and Formosa. It was considered as a synonym of vittigera Horvath by Horvath in his monograph (Hist.-Nat. Mus. Nat. Hung., Ann. 13: 550, 1915) but was resurrected by the same author in 1924 (op. cit., 21: 35, 1924).

Figures

FIGURE 25.-Mesovelia species, details of ventral surface of first genital segment: tt, pacifica; b, orientaUs; c, mulsanti