Subgenus Dialecticopteryx (Dialecticopteryx) Kirkaldy, 1907

Dialecticopteryx (Dialecticopteryx) australica, type species of Dialecticopteryx (Dialecticopteryx Kirkaldy).

© Copyright Murray Fletcher, Orange Agricultural Institute.

Museums

Regional Maps

• Dialecticopteryx Kirkaldy, G.W. 1907. Leafhoppers — Supplement (Hemiptera). Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 3: 1-186 [71].

  Type species:

   Dialecticopteryx australica Kirkaldy, 1907 by monotypy.
• Austroasca (Paolia) Lower, H.F. 1952. A revision of Australian species previously referred to the genus Empoasca (Cicadellidae: Homoptera). Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 76(5-6): 190-221 [208].

  Type species:

   Empoasca bancrofti Evans, 1938 by monotypy.

Taxonomic Decision for Synonymy

• Fletcher, M.J. & Donaldson, J.F. 1992. Empoasca (Empoasca) smithi, a new species of leafhopper damaging citrus in Queensland and notes on other Typhlocybinae from Australia (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 31(2): 183-186 [185] (synonymy of Austroasca (Paolia))

Introduction

This subgenus is known from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Australia where the fig leafhopper is distributed along the eastern coastline of mainland Australia between Cape York Peninsula in far North Queensland and the Sydney basin of New South Wales.

Distribution

States

New South Wales, Queensland

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

NSW, Qld: Brigalow Belt North (BBN), Brigalow Belt South (BBS), Cape York Peninsula (CYP), NSW North Coast (NNC), Sydney Basin (SB), South Eastern Queensland (SEQ), Wet Tropics (WT)

Diagnosis

An aberrant genus, distinguished by the peculiar venation of tegmina and wings. Vertex transverse, declivous, anteriorly rounded, not (or scarcely) prominent in front of eyes, longitudinally sulculate, posteriorly marginate and raised from the pronotum. Pronotum transverse, little longer than the vertex, lateral margins short, carinate. Scutellum longer than wide, about as long as the pronotum. Tegmina sparsely punctured, venation obscure; the radial and median are united at the base, fork soon after, but keep very close together till a little basal of the apical cells when they reunite; cubital obsolete basally, only appearing a little basal of the apical cells. The radiomedial reforks apical of the subapical line, thus forming a triangular cell; there are two quadrilinear cells interior of this (perhaps more if the apical veins fork). No veins in the clavus and no appendix (Kirkaldy 1907).

The only Australian species is clearly identifiable within the Australian Empoascini by the presence of two large black spots on the head.

Diagnosis References

Kirkaldy, G.W. 1907. Leafhoppers — Supplement (Hemiptera). Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 3: 1-186 [71]

History of changes