Subfamily Iassinae Amyot & Serville, 1843

Museums

Regional Maps

• Iassides Amyot, C.J.B. & Audinet-Serville, J.G. 1843. Histoire Naturelle des Insects. Hémiptères. Paris : Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret, Rue Hautefeuille 10 B13 676 pp. [581].

Introduction

The first use of Iassides as a group name within the Membracoidea was by Amyot & Serville (1843) who included several genera which now form the basis for other subfamilies within the Cicadellidae, e.g. Eupelix, Acocephalus, Selenocephalus, Coelidia, Macropsis, Iassus and others. Metcalf (1966) credits Walker (1870) as the first user of Iassides in its more or less current sense but Walker (1870) provides no description of the group and credits the name to Amyot & Serville (1843) which is what is followed here. The higher classification of the subfamily was modified by Krishnankutty et al. (2016) to remove all the Australian representatives from the tribe Iassini with the widespread Oriental and Pacific genus Batracomorphus Lewis, with 29 Australian species, moved into its own tribe the Batracomorphini while the genus Thalattoscopus Kirkaldy, with three Australian species, were transferred to the tribe Trocnadini which previously only included the endemic genus Trocnada Walker. The third Australian tribe, Reuplemmelini, which is distributed in Australia and New Guinea, remains unchanged with four Australian species in two genera.

Diagnosis

Ce groupe se distingue des deux précédents [Tettigonides & Scarides] par la position des ocelles, placés sur le bord antérieur de la tête, caractère très-remarquable quoique assez difficile à reconnaître au premier abord, parce que souvent ils sont à peine visibles à l'oeil nu. Quelquefois ils semblent disparaître entièrement, du moins à l'oeil muni d'une loupe ordinaire. Dans ce cas, il faut se régler pour la classification sur le faciès particulier de ce groupe, qui consiste en général dans un corps ovalaire assez large, et non linéaire (Amyot & Serville 1843).

Head with lateral frontal sutures usually extended only part way to ocelli, usually obsolete at or slightly above antennal pits; ocelli either on crown or near crown-face transition, forewing with inner apical cell usually narrow, attenuate; male genital capsule partially retracted into pregenital segment, sternite VIII usually concealing at least basal half of subgenital plates in repose; dorsal margin of female second valvula usually with few prominent, widely spaced teeth (Krishnankutty et al. 2016).

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

Amyot, C.J.B. & Audinet-Serville, J.G. 1843. Histoire Naturelle des Insects. Hémiptères. Paris : Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret, Rue Hautefeuille 10 B13 676 pp. [581]

General References

Amyot, C.J.B. & Audinet-Serville, J.G. 1843. Histoire Naturelle des Insects. Hémiptères. Paris : Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret, Rue Hautefeuille 10 B13 676 pp. [581]

Krishnankutty, S.M., Dietrich, C.H., Dai, W. & Siddappaji, M.H. 2016. Phylogeny and historical biogeography of leafhopper subfamily Iassinae (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) with a revised tribal classification based on morphological and molecular data. Systematic Entomology 41: 580–595

Metcalf, Z.P. 1966. General Catalogue of the Homoptera. Fascicle VI, Cicadelloidea. Part 15, Iassidae. Raleigh N.C. : North Carolina State College 229 pp. [5]

Walker, F. 1870. Catalogue of the Homopterous insects collected in the Indian Archipelago by Mr A.R. Wallace, with descriptions of new species. Journal of the Linnean Society of London, Zoology 10: 276-330 [307]

History of changes