Pherodactylina

Cadena-Castañeda, Oscar J., Liu, Yi-Jiao, Yu, Zhe-Yuan, Hu, Tian-Hao, Wu, Shi-Yang & He, Zhu-Qing, 2023, Are the recently described fossil Mole Crickets of Myanmar amber real gryllotalpids? (Orthoptera: Gryllotalpidae & Gryllidae), Zootaxa 5311 (1), pp. 48-64 : 52

Subtribe † Pherodactylina Cadena-Castañeda & He n. subtr.

Diagnosis. Slender body covered with several hairs. Head globose, slightly flattened dorsoventrally. Pronotum moderately elongated, 1.5 times as long as broad, rectangular. Forelegs fossorial type, with the distal portion of fore tibia laterally compressed, and three strong movable apical spurs arranged only on inner side of tibia. Hind tibia moderately flattened, slightly shorter than femur; with small spines on dorsal margin and six spurs apically, three inner spurs and three outer ones nearly equal in length and shorter than first tarsomere, upper inner spur significantly longest.

Taxa included. † Pherodactylus Poinar, Su & Brown, 2020 (type genus) and † Burmagryllotalpa Wang et al., 2019 .

Remarks. This new subtribe is proposed to group fossil taxa only, in which some are originally described as mole crickets. After morphological analysis in this study, we conclude that they are true crickets with short dorsal spines on the hind tibia. Possessing serrated hind tibia is one of the characters that characterize Sclerogryllini taxa.

Comparison. † Pherodactylina n. subtr. is included in Sclerogryllini , due to the structure of the hind tibia, in addition to the shape of the pronotum, which is more elongated in comparison with the field crickets of other Gryllinae tribes. The venation of the tegmina of the male of † P. rectanguli n. comb. resembles the venation of known Sclerogryllus males ( Fig. 2 ). The same happens in the shape of the ovipositor in females, which presents a similar structure in its length with respect to the hind femur and the shape of the apex of the valves. Sclerogryllina n. stat. differs from † Pherodactylina n. subtr., due to its more robust appearance, glabrous body, and less pubescence. The species of † Pherodactylina n. subtr. are yellowish-brown in color, while Sclerogryllus species are almost black. Sclerogryllina n. stat. does not possess the fore tibiae with modification to dig, and it possesses three small apical spurs on each margin (outer and inner). On the other hand, the new tribe does not possess apical spines on the outer margin. Finally, Sclerogryllina n. stat. has conspicuously delineated hind femur chevrons traces, which does not appear in † Pherodactylina n. subtr.

Figures

FIGURE 2. Forewing morphology of †Pherodactylus rectanguli n. comb., specimen ECNU-AM-0019, adult male and Sclerogryllus punctatus. A, photograph of left forewing. B, drawing of left forewing. C. right forewing of S. punctatus. Scale bar = 0.5 mm.