More than a century old ‘ Platycleis Kraussi case’ finally resolved (Tettigoniidae: Platycleidini)
Skejo, Josip
Rebrina, Fran
Tvrtković, Nikola
Gomboc, Stanislav
Heller, Klaus-Gerhard
Zootaxa
2015
3990
4
497
524
4JPQ8
[422,633,834,860]
Insecta
Tettigoniidae
Platycleis
Animalia
Orthoptera
5
502
Arthropoda
species
kraussi
Firstly, we made detailed comparison of some morphological features (tegmina and male cerci) of Platycleis kraussiand Bicolorana kuntzeniin order to test if there are differences strong enough to treat these two taxa as separate species. We performed both morphological and morphometrical analysis. We found that specimens with tegmina completely without black markings ( Figure 4) occur more often in Ćičarija Mt. and Učka Mt. population ( 17 malesand 13 females), while specimens with tegmina bearing black markings are rarer ( 5 malesand 5 females). Animals with black markings on tegmina are more abundant in Velika Kapela Mt. ( 20 malesand 9 females), while specimens with tegmina bearing no markings are rather rare in this population ( 2 malesand 3 females). Males from Velika Kapela Mt. show variability of a smaller range in cerci coloration (almost all the cerci examined—20 males—have distal 1/3 of the cerci much darker that the basal 2/3, while in Učka Mt. and Ćićarija Mt. population there is no morphotype that can be said to be more common than others (Figure 3). We concluded that these differences are not species specific, but represent the variability within the species. Both old descriptions ( Padewieth 1900, Ramme 1931) were performed on small samples without possibility to analyse species variability, while detailed analyses of a larger sample indicate that B. kuntzeniand P. kraussiare indeed the same species. In the analysis of other morphological characters (body coloration, head morphology, veins morphology, males pars stridens morphology, fore and mid legs morphology, hind femora morphology, males X th tergite morphology, males titillators shape, subgenital plate morphology, females ovipositor morphology) no statistical differences between samples were found. In all following analyses we consider B. kuntzeniand P. kraussias a single sample. For nomenclatural actions on this matter, consult Taxonomical and nomenclatural part.