Species Perkinsiella graminicida Kirkaldy, 1906

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• Perkinsiella graminicida Kirkaldy, G.W. 1906. Leafhoppers and their natural enemies. Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 1(9): 271-479 [406].

  Type data:

   Syntype(s) BPBM ♂, ♀, quantity unknown (coll.: vii-viii.1904, on grasses, Koebele), Cairns, Queensland.

Introduction

This species is not as well known as the other Australian species of Perkinsiella. The original description of the species was from Cairns in the wet tropics of North Queensland. The syntype series included males and Muir (1926) provided an illustration of the aedeagus, presumably from one of Kirkaldy's male syntypes. Muir (1916) provided a cryptic note that P. fuscipennis Muir, which he had described as a new species from the Philippines, was "a Philippine representative of the Australian P. graminicida Kirkaldy; there is little difference in the genitalia, but the concolorous face and the greater expanse of the fuscous area on the tegmina distinguish it." Muir (1917) provided illustrations of the aedeagi of both species. Metcalf (1943) listed the species from Hawaii but no record of the species from Hawaii was published by Kirkaldy or Muir, both of whom worked in Hawaii. The common name "Queensland Sugarcane Planthopper" has been coined for this species with little justification since P. saccharicida is the common species in Queensland.

Distribution

States

Queensland

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

Qld: Wet Tropics (WT)

Ecological Descriptors

Adult: vector.

All stages: phloem feeder.

Extra Ecological Information

This species is presumed to be capable of transmitting Fiji Leafgall Disease of sugarcane

Diagnosis

Closely allied to P. saccharicida, but a little smaller. The tegminal veins are more thickly granulate especially in the female. Antennae a little shorter and less stout. Pronotum and scutellum scarcely darkened laterally. Male always macropterous; exterior half of 5th and 6th apical cells smoky, also apices of apical veins, etc. Female always brachypterous. Length: (Male) 5 mm; (female) 4 mm. (Kirkaldy 1906)

There is no sheath. The chamber is short and the apex of the broad basal plate prolongation is soldered to the ventral or anterior margin of the base of the periandrium. (Muir 1926)

Diagnosis References

Muir, F. 1926. The Morphology of the Aedeagus in Delphacidae (Homoptera). Transactions of the Entomological Society of London 1926(2): 377–380 [378]

General References

Muir, F. 1916. Additions to the known Philippine Delphacidae (Hemiptera). Philippine Journal of Science. Section D. General Biology, Ethnology and Anthropology 11(6): 369–385 [381]

Muir, F. 1917. Homopterous Notes. Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society 3(4): 311-338 [313 (figures 30, 31)]

Muir, F. 1926. The Morphology of the Aedeagus in Delphacidae (Homoptera). Transactions of the Entomological Society of London 1926(2): 377–380

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