Species Nesoclutha phryne (Kirkaldy, 1907)

Nesoclutha phryne(Kirkaldy), adult.

© Copyright Murray Fletcher, Orange Agricultural Institute.

Museums

Regional Maps

• Nesosteles phryne Kirkaldy, G.W. 1907. Leafhoppers — Supplement (Hemiptera). Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 3: 1-186 [66].

  Type data:

   Lectotype BPBM ♂ (coll.: i.1905, Koebele), Mittagong, New South Wales.

  Subsequent designation references:

  Fletcher, M.J. & Condello, A.A. 1993. Lectotype designations and new synonymies for G. W. Kirkaldy's Australian Deltocephalinae (Homoptera: Cicadellidae) held in the B.P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. General and Applied Entomology 25: 35-59 [49].
• Eusceloscopus pallidus Evans, J.W. 1942. New leafhoppers (Homoptera: Jassoidea) from Western Australia. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 27: 143-163 [147].

  Type data:

   Holotype BMNH ♂ (coll.: xii.1935, R.E. Turner), Yanchep, Western Australia.
• Nesoclutha obscura Evans, J.W. 1947. A new leafhopper from Victoria (Homoptera: Jassidae). Memoirs of the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne 15: 126-127 [126].

  Type data:

   Holotype BMNH ♂ (coll.: i.1947, O.W. Tiegs), Melbourne, Victoria.

Taxonomic Decision for Synonymy

• Evans, J.W. 1966. The leafhoppers and froghoppers of Australia and New Zealand. Memoirs of the Australian Museum 12: 1-347 [252] (synonymy of N. obscura)
• Day, M.F. & Fletcher, M.J. 1994. An annotated catalogue of the Australian Cicadelloidea (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha). Invertebrate Taxonomy 8: 1117-1288 [1220] (synonymy of E. pallidus)

Generic Combinations

• Nesoclutha phryne (Kirkaldy, 1907). —
  Fletcher, M.J. & Condello, A.A. 1993. Lectotype designations and new synonymies for G. W. Kirkaldy's Australian Deltocephalinae (Homoptera: Cicadellidae) held in the B.P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. General and Applied Entomology 25: 35-59 [48] (Fletcher & Condello (1993) credited the combination to Evans (1977) but Evans used N. pallida in that work so the new combination was first published by Fletcher & Condello (1993))

Introduction

The Australian Grass Leafhopper is very common throughout most of Australia where grass grows. It is known through most of the economic literature as Nesoclutha pallida (Evans) which is a junior synonym of Kirkaldy's name. The species is a known vector of Cereal Chlorotic Mottle Rhabdovirus (Greber 1977), Maize Wallaby Ear, Chloris Striate Mosaic Virus and Paspalum Striate Mosaic Virus (Grylls 1979).

Distribution

States

Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

ACT, NSW, NT, Qld, SA, Tas, Vic, WA: Arnhem Coast (ARC), Brigalow Belt North (BBN), Brigalow Belt South (BBS), Broken Hill Complex (BHC), Carnarvon (CAR), Cobar Peneplain (CP), Central Ranges (CR), Cape York Peninsula (CYP), Daly Basin (DAB), Davenport Murchison Ranges (DMR), Darling Riverine Plains (DRP), Einasleigh Uplands (EIU), Eyre Yorke Block (EYB), Flinders Lofty Block (FLB), Gawler (GAW), Gulf Plains (GUP), Great Victoria Desert (GVD), MacDonnell Ranges (MAC), Murray Darling Depression (MDD), Mount Isa Inlier (MII), Mulga Lands (ML), Nandewar (NAN), New England Tablelands (NET), NSW North Coast (NNC), NSW South Western Slopes (NSS), Ord Victoria Plain (OVP), Pilbara (PIL), Riverina (RIV), Sydney Basin (SB), South East Coastal Plain (SCP), South Eastern Highlands (SEH), South Eastern Queensland (SEQ), Swan Coastal Plain (SWA), Tanami (TAN), Tasmanian Central Highlands (TCH), Victoria Bonaparte (VB), Victorian Midlands (VM), Wet Tropics (WT)

Other Regions

Lord Howe Island terrestrial & freshwater, Norfolk Island terrestrial & freshwater, Torres Strait Islands terrestrial, marine & freshwater

Ecological Descriptors

Adult: vector.

All stages: phloem feeder.

Extra Ecological Information

Cereal chlorotic mottle rhabdovirus, Maize wallaby ear, Chloris striate virus, Paspalum striate virus

Diagnosis

Creamy testaceous, basal four-fifths of abdomen dark fuscous. Tegmina hyaline milky, veins creamy. Wings hyaline, veins on apical half pale fuscous. This differs from typical Nesosteles by the radial vein being scarcely obsolescent, and by the vertex being as long as wide between the eyes, nearly as long as the pronotum, angularly produced, nearly twice as long in the middle as at the eyes. Length 4 mm. (Kirkaldy 1907).

Diagnosis References

Kirkaldy, G.W. 1907. Leafhoppers — Supplement (Hemiptera). Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 3: 1-186 [66]

General References

Greber, R.S. 1977. Cereal Chlorotic Mottle Virus (CCMV), a Rhabdovirus of Gramineae Transmitted by the Leafhopper Nesoclutha pallida. Australasian Plant Pathology Society Newsletter 6(1): 17 [17]

Grylls, N.E. 1979. Leafhopper Vectors and the Plant Disease Agents they Transmit in Australia. pp. 179–214 in Maramorosch, K. & Harris, K.F. Leafhopper Vectors and Plant Disease Agents. New York, San Francisco, London : Academic Press. [199]

History of changes