Species Tambinia venusta (Kirkaldy, 1906)

Tambinia venusta (Kirkaldy), adult.

© Copyright Murray Fletcher, Orange Agricultural Institute.

Museums

Regional Maps

• Ossa venusta Kirkaldy, G.W. 1906. Leafhoppers and their natural enemies. Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 1(9): 271-479 [414].

  Type data:

   
  Syntype(s) BPBM sex, quantity unknown (coll.: viii.1904), Cairns, Queensland; BPBM sex, quantity unknown (coll.: viii.1904), Kuranda, Queensland.
• Ossa formosa Kirkaldy, G.W. 1906. Leafhoppers and their natural enemies. Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 1(9): 271-479 [414].

  Type data:

   
  Syntype(s) BPBM sex, quantity unknown (coll.: ix-xii.1904), Bundaberg, Queensland; BPBM sex, quantity unknown (coll.: xi.1904), Brisbane, Queensland; BPBM sex, quantity unknown (coll.: i.1905), Bundaberg, Queensland.
• Tambinia stupida Melichar, L. 1914. Monographie der Tropiduchinen (Homoptera). Verhandlungen des Naturforschenden Vereines in Brünn 53: 1-145 [84].

  Type data:

   Syntype(s) whereabouts unknown sex, quantity unknown, New Guinea.

Taxonomic Decision for Synonymy

• Jacobi, A. 1928. Results of Dr E. Mjöberg's Swedish Scientific Expeditions to Australia 1910-1913. Rhynchota, Homoptera. 1. Fulgoridae und Cercopidae. Arkiv för Zoologi 19A(28): 1-50 [24] (synonymy of O. formosa and T. stupida)

Generic Combinations

• Tambinia venusta (Kirkaldy, 1906). —
  Muir, F. 1913. On some new Fulgoroidea. Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society 2(5): 237-269 [255]

Introduction

This is the most colourful of Australia's tropiduchid planthoppers with red markings on the head and body which are probably otherwise green in life. It is found along the coast of Queensland from the wet tropics in North Queensland to the southeast. It has also been recorded in New Guinea.

Distribution

States

Queensland

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

Qld: South Eastern Queensland (SEQ), Wet Tropics (WT)

Ecological Descriptors

All stages: phloem feeder.

Diagnosis

Pale greenish testaceous; vertex with six crimson specks, 3 on each side of the median keel, in a longitudinal row; lateral keels of scutellum more or less crimson, also a speck at the interobasal angle of clavus and a speck on the commissure about the middle. legs spines black. Vertex about ½ to ¾ longer than broad, well produced in front of eyes, rounded anteriorly. Frons suboval, about twice as long as wide. Length: 6½–6¾ mm (Kirkaldy 1906).

The two Australian species of Tambinia can easily be distinguished by colour. This species has the carinae of the head and pronotum highlighted in red whereas T. sexmaculata doesn't.

ID Keys

Wang & Liang 2011: 17–19

Diagnosis References

Kirkaldy, G.W. 1906. Leafhoppers and their natural enemies. Bulletin of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experimental Station Entomological Series 1(9): 271-479 [414]

Wang, R.R. and Liang, A.P. 2011. Taxonomic review of the genus Tambinia Stål (Hemiptera, Fulgoromorpha, Tropiduchidae) with descriptions of four new species from the Pacific region. ZooKeys 132: 13–31 [17–19]

History of changes