Species Ricania protea Distant, 1909

Museums

Regional Maps

• Ricania protea Distant, W.L. 1909. Rhynchota Notes. xlix. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 4(4): 320-338 [324].

  Type data:

   Syntype(s) BMNH sex, quantity unknown (coll: F.P. Dodd), Queensland.

Introduction

This species, along with two unnamed colour variants, was based on specimens (or a specimen) from Queensland without a precise locality but the collector, F.P. Dodd, did most of his collecting in the wet tropics of North Queensland (see Monteith 1991) and it is presumed that the specimens originated in that area.

Distribution

States

Queensland

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

Qld: Wet Tropics (WT)

Ecological Descriptors

All stages: phloem feeder.

Diagnosis

Vertex piceous brown or black; pronotum and mesonotum dull black, the carinations more or less piceous brown; abdomen above black, somewhat shining, narrowly greyish at base; body beneath black; lateral margins of face, legs, rostrum, and a spot near base of anal segment ochraceous; legs more or less spotted or suffused with piceous; tegmina black, a costal spot a little beyond middle, a broad central annulate transverse fascia commencing beneath the costal spot, broadly extending inwardly at about one-third from posterior claval margin, and then more narrowly and straightly continued to posterior claval margin at about one-third from base, and the apical margin beneath apex greyish white; wings pale fuscous hyaline, the veins piceous; pronotum with a central longitudinal carination; mesonotum tricarinate, the central carination straight, the lateral carinations curved and meeting on anterior margin, the latter also connected with the anterior margin by a straight carination from near their middle; tegmina short and broad.
Var. a.—Tegmina with the costal and apical marginal pale markings present, but the large discal fascia absent.
Var. b.—Costal spot present or obsolete, remaining pale markings absent.
Long., excl. tegm., 6 mm; exp, tegm. 16 to 18 mm. (Distant 1909).

Diagnosis References

Distant, W.L. 1909. Rhynchota Notes. xlix. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 4(4): 320-338 [324–325]

General References

Monteith, G.B. 1991. The Butterfly Man of Kuranda, Frederick Parkhurst Dodd. South Brisbane : Queensland Museum 1, 34 pp. [ISBN 0 7242 4481 6] [1]

History of changes