Limnogonus fossarum (Fabricius)

Usinger, Robert L., 1946, Hemiptera Heteroptera of Guam, Insects of Guam II, Honolulu, Hawaii: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Bulletin 189, pp. 11-103 : 94-95

88. Limnogonus fossarum (Fabricius) .

Cime.i fossarum Fabricius, Syst. Ent., 727, 1775.

Two specimens, Inarajan, May 7, Usinger ; two specimens, stream mouth south of Agat , June 19, Usinger ; one specimen, Fullaway (1191); all specimens macropterous .

These agree perfectly with Esaki's figures [Ins. Samoa 2(2): 70, 1928] and Lundblad's excellent description and figures (Arch. Hydrobiol. Suppl. 12: 374, 1933). Specimens are before me from Java, the Philippines, and Fiji. It has been reported elsewhere from India, Ceylon, China, Formosa, Sumatra, and Celebes, and Esaki collected both macropterous and brachypterous specimens on Saipan.

In addition to the above-mentioned macropterous specimens from Guam, five brachypterous specimens from Agana Swamp, May 4, Usinger , and one brachypterous specimen from south of Facpi Point, May 28, Usinger , agree in genital characters and hence have been placed here. The occurrence of brachypterous specimens resembling fossarum is suggestive of the situation in Samoa, where L. pacificus Esaki was described from an exclusively brachypterous series and differentiated from fossarum only by minor genitalic characters.

The Guam series agrees with fossarum rather than pacificus , though some variation is exhibited, particularly in the shape of the posterior ventral margin of the sixth abdominal segment in the male and in the degree to which the sternite of the last abdominal segment is reflexed dorsally.