Tribe Erythroneurini Young, 1952

Museums

Regional Maps

• Erythroneurini Young, D.A. 1952. A reclassification of Western Hemisphere Typhlocybinae (Homoptera, Cicadellidae). University of Kansas Science Bulletin 35: 1-217 [70].

  Type genus:

   Erythroneura Fitch, 1851.

Introduction

The tribe Erythroneurini is one of the largest in the Cicadellidae with 181 recognised genera, many with subgenera, distributed through all regions of the world where plants can be found. The Australian fauna has been poorly studied with most species placed inappropriately in the Palaearctic genus Zygina Fieber before Fletcher & Larivière (2009) created the genus Anzygina for most these and the New Zealand species previously placed in Zygina. There are many undescribed species of the genera Anzygina, Pettya Kirkaldy and Empoascanara Distant known in collections and there are additional undescribed species which cannot currently be placed to a genus. Two described species remain in the genus Zygina but new genera will be created for them.

The name "Zygina sp." has been published for an undescribed species of a probably undescribed genus (C.H. Dietrich, pers. comm. 2009) which was introduced to Australia from South Africa as a biological control agent of bridal veil creeper, Asparagus asparagoides (L.) Druce (Asparagaceae). Publication of this name for the species is not only incorrect for the Australian fauna but it also invalidly records the genus Zygina Fieber from Africa for the first time.

Species of Anzygina are narrow delicate leafhoppers while those of Empoascanara are more stocky in build. The species of Pettya are larger insects with a large, distinctively pitted pronotum. An interactive key to the world genera is available on the 3i website at http://ctap.inhs.uiuc.edu/dmitriev/index.asp.

Diagnosis

In the tribe Erythroneurini are placed all those Typhlocybinae in which the vannal veins are fused, Cu1 appears branched apically (its apical portion not fused with the apical portion of vein M3+4), Cu2 is confluent with the submarginal vein in the basal half of the wing, and in which the style apices are in one of two forms of development: first, a single flattened apical extension which is truncate apically and, second, a condition in which a second extension has developed from the outer apex of the first extension. In the second condition, the mesal apex of the first extension is represented by the "heel" (Young 1952).

ID Keys

Fletcher, M.J. (2009 and updates). Key to the leafhoppers and treehoppers of Australia and neighbouring areas (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha). http://www1.dpi.nsw.gov.au/keys/leafhop/index.html [accessed: 9.iii.2012]

History of changes