Species Platybrachys maculipennis (Le Guillou, 1841)

Museums

Regional Maps

• Eurybrachys maculipennis Le Guillou, E.J.F. 1841. Description des Hémiptères nouveaux qu'il à recueillis pendant son voyage de circumnavigation sur la corvette la Zélée. Revue de Zoologie, Paris 4: 260-263 [260].

  Type data:

   Holotype MNHP ♀, "Australie septentrionalis" = northern Australia.

Generic Combinations

• Platybrachys maculipennis (Le Guillou, 1841). —
  Kirkaldy, G.W. 1906. Leafhoppers and their natural enemies. Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 1(9): 271-479 [444]

Introduction

Hacker (1924) provided some biological notes on this species in SE Queensland where he found it on the trunk of the stringybark, Eucalyptus acmenioides Schauer (Myrtaceae).
The source of Le Guillou's original material is probably Raffles Bay, Northern Territory at 11º16' S 132º24' E. Le Guillou was on the French gunboat Zélée which accompanied the Astrolabe on its circumnavigation voyage of 1837-1840 from France to Antarctica, across the Pacific, through the Solomons Islands to Guam and Indonesia, thence into Torres Strait, where the Zélée visited New Guinea and "North Australia" between 27.iii.1939 and 6.iv.1839. The two ships then travelled to the Philippines and Indonesia again before sailing to Hobart from whence they made another attempt to penetrate Antarctic waters before heading home to France via New Zealand, Torres Strait and Timor. The only landings they made in Australia appear to be Raffles Bay, Northern Territory, and Hobart, Tasmania.
(see http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/voyages/astrolabe/timeline.shtml)
More information on the distribution of this species in Australia will be available when the identities of the species of Platybrachys are determined by a generic revision.

Distribution

States

Northern Territory, Queensland

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

NT, Qld: South Eastern Queensland (SEQ), Tiwi Cobourg (TIW)

Ecological Descriptors

All stages: phloem feeder (associated flora: Eucalyptus acmenoides Schauer, 1843 [MYRTACEAE] White Mahogany).

Associated Flora References

Hacker, H. 1924. Field notes on Platybrachys &c (Homoptera). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 8(1): 37-42 [39] (Eucalyptus acmenoides)

Diagnosis

Brunneus, oculis haud emarginatus, nec appendice oculare exerto instructis; elytris brunneis, apice nigro maculatis, alis nigris postice dilutioribus (L. 7 m, larg 3 m, env 18 m.)
Cette espèce rapporte au genre Eurybrachis par l'aplatissement des pates et la forme du chaperon; mais elle s'en eloignerait par son aspect general, et surtout par l'absence de l'appendice oculaire; elle me paraitrait donc susceptible de former une coupe generique nouvelle. (Le Guillou 1841, typed copy made by J.W. Evans)

Diagnosis References

Le Guillou, E.J.F. 1841. Description des Hémiptères nouveaux qu'il à recueillis pendant son voyage de circumnavigation sur la corvette la Zélée. Revue de Zoologie, Paris 4: 260-263 [261]

General References

Hacker, H. 1924. Field notes on Platybrachys &c (Homoptera). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 8(1): 37-42 [39]

History of changes