Species Platybrachys sicca (Walker, 1851)

Museums

Regional Maps

• Eurybrachys sicca Walker, F. 1851. List of the Specimens of Homopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum. London : British Museum (Natural History) Vol. 2 pp. 261-636. [384].

  Type data:

   
  Syntype(s) BMNH ♀ (presented by the Earl of Derby), New Holland; BMNH 2 ♀, locality unknown.
• Eurybrachys semisicca Walker, F. 1851. List of the Specimens of Homopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum. London : British Museum (Natural History) Vol. 2 pp. 261-636. [387].

  Type data:

   Holotype BMNH ♀, locality unknown.

Taxonomic Decision for Synonymy

• 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]

Generic Combinations

• Platybrachys sicca (Walker, 1851). —
  Stål, C. 1862. Synonymiska och systematiska anteckningar öfver Hemiptera. Öfversigt af Kongelige Vetenskaps-Akademiens Förhandlingar, Stockholm 19(9): 479-504 [488]

Taxonomic Decision for Subspecies Arrangement

• Lallemand, V. 1935. Homoptères des Iles de la Sonde et de l'Australie du Nord. Revue Suisse de Zoologie 42(26): 661-681 [675]

Introduction

This species was recorded from Western Australia by Jacobi (1928) and from the Northern Territory by Lallemand (1935) who also described a colour variant, var. longitudinalis which is deemed subspecific under ICZN Art. 45.6.4. The identities and distributions of these forms needs to be determined as part of a revision of the genus.

Distribution

States

Northern Territory, Western Australia

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

NT, WA: Central Kimberley (CK), Darwin Coastal (DAC), Dampierland (DL), Northern Kimberley (NK), Pine Creek (PCK)

Distribution References

Ecological Descriptors

All stages: phloem feeder.

Diagnosis

Body ferruginous, dull, minutely rugulose, adorned with tawny spots; head as broad as the chest, its breadth more than twice its length; crown short, slightly curved, surrounded by a ridge; face broad, flat, surrounded by a slight ridge, transversely elliptical with the exception of a concavity on the fore part of each side, having in the disk a shallow slightly arched transverse ridge, concave in the middle of the suture where it joins the epistoma; mouth ferruginous, reaching the hind-hips; eyes hardly prominent; shield of the chest short, slightly arched; scutcheon having on each side two slight curved ridges, which converge near the fore border; hind-chest short, with tawny transverse ridges; abdomen tawny, nearly elliptical, a little longer than the chest; tip thickly clothed with white filaments; sutures of the segments more or less pitchy; legs ferruginous, stout, furrowed; hind-shanks armed with broad spines; fore-wings ferruginous, adorned with black marks which are variouis in size and shape; reticulated part tawny, occupying more than one-third of the surface, adorned with some black and colorless marks, the latter chiefly on the borders; veins ferruginous; hind-wings tawny, brown towards the tips; veins brown. Length of the body 5.5 lines; of the wings 16 lines. (Walker 1851)

Diagnosis References

Walker, F. 1851. List of the Specimens of Homopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum. London : British Museum (Natural History) Vol. 2 pp. 261-636. [384–385]

History of changes