Tribe Hecalini Distant, 1908

Museums

Regional Maps

• Hecalusaria Distant, W.L. 1908. Rhynchota. — Vol. IV. Homoptera and Appendix. The Fauna of British India including Ceylon and Burma 4: 1-501 [273].

  Type genus:

   Hecalus Stål, 1864.

Introduction

The Hecalini is distributed worldwide and includes two subtribes only one of which occurs in Australia. Two genera are found in Australia: Hecalocratus Evans, which is monotypic and endemic to Queensland, and Hecalus Stål, which is one of the most widespread and species rich in the tribe and includes four Australian species, one of which, Hecalus arcuatus (Motschulsky), is immediately recognisable with its oblique orange striping.

Excluded Taxa

Misidentifications

Cicadellidae: Reuteria flavescens Signoret, 1880 [this species was recorded from Tasmania by Signoret (1880) but no subsequent record of a hecaline has been made from Tasmania other than references to Signoret's record. Evans (1966) queried the veracity of the record and it was excluded from the Australian fauna by Fletcher 2009: http://www1.dpi.nsw.gov.au/keys/leafhop/deltocephalinae/hecalini.htm] — Signoret, V.A. 1880. Essai sur les Jassides Stål, Fieb, et plus particulièrement sur les Acocéphalides Puton. Annales de la Société Entomologique de France 5 10: 41-70, 189-212, 347-366 [46]; Evans, J.W. 1966. The leafhoppers and froghoppers of Australia and New Zealand. Memoirs of the Australian Museum 12: 1-347 [136]

Diagnosis

Body depressed; vertex more or less flatly produced; ocelli placed on the apical margin of the head or near the eyes (Distant 1908).

Hecalini are medium sized to large, somewhat to strongly dorsoventrally flattened, stramineous, yellow, green or pale brown leafhoppers, sometimes with bright orange or reddish markings. They can be identified by the produced and parabolically shaped head, dorsoventrally flattened body, lateral margin of pronotum as long as or longer than the basal width of the eye, ocelli closer to they eyes than the laterofrontal sutures (Zahniser & Dietrich 2013).

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

Diagnosis References

Distant, W.L. 1908. The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Rhynchota. London : Taylor & Francis Vol. 4 xv 501 pp. [273]

Zahniser, J.N. & Dietrich, C.H. 2013. A review of the tribes of Deltocephalinae (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadellidae). European Journal of Taxonomy 45: 1–211 [91]

History of changes