Illyria Moulds, 1985

Moulds, Max & Marshall, David C., 2022, New genera and new species of Western Australian cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae), Zootaxa 5174 (5), pp. 451-507 : 459-460

Illyria Moulds, 1985

When first established the genus Illyria included four species ( Moulds 1985) and no further species have since been added. Moulds (2012) provided a more detailed analysis of the genus noting, in particular, the wide head (eyes widely separated from the supra-antennal plates), a narrow pronotal collar, timbal covers that almost reach the metathorax (although their upper margin is reduced exposing a small part of the timbal membrane), and distinctive male genitalia that have the distal shoulders upwardly turned at their apices, large rounded and outwardly directed basal lobes, and a theca bearing a pair of subapical cerci (the left one at least exceedingly long). The species described below as I. viridis sp. n. has all of these attributes including the distinctive male genitalia.

One species, I. hilli , differs a little from the three other described species in having a green colouring, a slightly wider male abdomen and a slightly larger tympanal cavity. These are also attributes of I. viridis sp. n. but in the latter they are exaggerated so that the male abdomen is clearly wider than the thorax and the tympanal cavity occupies around half the length of the ventral abdomen. These shared attributes suggest I. hilli and I. viridis are sister taxa within Illyria .