Species Batracomorphus lentiginosus (Kirkaldy, 1906)

Batracomorphus lentiginosus (Kirkaldy), adult male (paratype of B. fasciatus Evans).

© Copyright Murray Fletcher, Orange Agricultural Institute.

Museums

Regional Maps

• Eurinoscopus lentiginosus Kirkaldy, G.W. 1906. Leafhoppers and their natural enemies. Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 1(9): 271-479 [347].

  Type data:

   
  Syntype(s) BPBM ♂ ♀, quantity unknown (coll.: viii.1904), Kuranda, Queensland; BPBM ♂ ♀, quantity unknown (coll.: vii.1904), Nelson (=Gordonvale), Queensland
  Comment: Knight (1983) referred to a "holotype" but no holotype exists. He also gave the type locality as Cairns but the label presumably has a red "K" or "N" on a printed "Cairns" label signifying Kuranda or Nelson, the two localities given by Kirkaldy (1906).
• Batrachomorphus fasciatus Evans, J.W. 1972. Some leafhoppers from New Guinea, Australia and Thailand belonging to the subfamily Jassinae and a new genus from New Guinea referred to a new subfamily, the Acostemminae (Homoptera: Cicadellidae). Pacific Insects 14(4): 647-662 [655].

  Type data:

   Holotype AM K69251 ♂ (coll.: xi.1969, J.G. Brooks, light trap), Cairns, Queensland.

Taxonomic Decision for Synonymy

• Knight, W.J. 1983. The leafhopper genus Batracomorphus (Cicadellidae) in the eastern Oriental and Australian Regions. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Entomology 47(2): 27-210 [193] (synonymy of B. fasciatus)

Generic Combinations

• Batrachomorphus lentiginosus (Kirkaldy, 1906). —
  Evans, J.W. 1966. The leafhoppers and froghoppers of Australia and New Zealand. Memoirs of the Australian Museum 12: 1-347 [206]

Introduction

This chubby little species from the wet tropics of North Queensland and Papua New Guinea bears distinctive black spots on the tegmina.

Distribution

States

Queensland

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

Qld: Wet Tropics (WT)

Ecological Descriptors

All stages: phloem feeder.

Diagnosis

Vertex and pronotum pale greenish, minutely spotted with black, the latter also smokily clouded through its entire length in the middle. Scutellum pale castaneous, with four dark spots on the anterior margin (or the two middle ones may coalesce and extend to the posterior angle.) The rounded frons is blackish, except the lateral margins which are very narrowly pale, and there are two small black spots at the sides of the antennal scrobes below the ledges. Rest of the underside pallid, pleura and base of the genital segments dark, the remainder of the latter minutely spotted with black. Tegmina subhyaline, pale cinereous yellow, (base sometimes more or less black.) Apices or intermediate femora and of posterior femora and tibiae black. Sternites pallid testaceous, greenish or reddish. Frons convex, lorae large. Pronotum much more convex than in the European B. microcephala, and anteriorly declivous, anterior margin more arched, lateral margins shorter; tegmina reaching well beyond apex of abdomen. Male: Last segment truncate, pygofers very short, valve elongate (the tip black), nearly as long as pygofers. Female: Last segment subtruncate, very slightly sinuate, pygofers granulate. Length: 4 7/8 mm. (Kirkaldy 1906).

Male pygophore processes slender, directed posteriorly, turned posteroventrally at midlength, then dorsoposteriorly, apex acute and sometimes turned posteriorly, ventral margin acutely ridged just distad of midlength. Subgenital plates as in dymas. Styles with apical process slender, elongate, of approximately uniform width, tapeing distally to acute upturned apex. Aedeagus short, robust, basal apodeme absent; shaft short, directed dorsally and slightly recurved anteriorly; gonopore apical; anterior incision very short (Knight 1983).

ID Keys

Knight 1983: 37–50

Diagnosis References

Kirkaldy, G.W. 1906. Leafhoppers and their natural enemies. Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 1(9): 271-479 [347]

Knight, W.J. 1983. The leafhopper genus Batracomorphus (Cicadellidae) in the eastern Oriental and Australian Regions. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Entomology 47(2): 27-210 [193]

History of changes