Aphonoides Chopard, 1940

Desutter-Grandcolas, Laure, Anso, Jérémy & Jourdan, Hervé, 2016, Crickets of New Caledonia (Insecta, Orthoptera, Grylloidea): a key to genera, with diagnoses of extant genera and descriptions of new taxa, Zoosystema 38 (4), pp. 405-452 : 442

Genus Aphonoides Chopard, 1940

Aphonoides Chopard, 1940: 203 .

TYPE SPECIES. — Gryllus (Eneopterus) punctatus Haan, 1842 .

ILLUSTRATIONS. — Habitus: Otte & Alexander 1983: fig. 268. Male genitalia: Otte et al. 1987: fig. 20C.

EMENDED DIAGNOSIS. — From Otte & Alexander (1983) and Otte et al. (1987) for the New Caledonian species. Small, fusiform species with long FWs and HWs in both sexes. Head more narrow than pronotum (not shown in A. ouveus ). Eyes small but protruding. Ocelli variable (all large and nearly equal in size in A. ouveus ). TI with a large inner tympanum; outer tympanum lacking or marked by a depression; with two apical spurs. TII with three apical spurs. TIII with three inner and three outer apical spurs, the outers small with the median the longest, the inners longer with the ventral very small and the dorsal the longest ( Otte & Alexander 1983: fig. 277A, B) (not shown in A. ouveus ); with five to seven outer (five in A. ouveus ) and five to eight inner (six in A. ouveus ) subapical spurs, small and located in TIII distal half (not shown in A. ouveus ).

Male. No stridulum and no tegminal glands. Male genitalia symmetrical; pseudepiphallic sclerite more or less triangular or rectangular; distal margin more or less deeply emarginate between two setose lobes.

Female. Apex of ovipositor not lanceolate; dorsal valves rounded, ornamented with rounded teeth of variable size (Otte & Alexan- der 1983: fig. 276O-Z). Subgenital plate distal margin straight or somewhat bisinuous.

DISTRIBUTION. — Aphonoides is distributed in Australia and New Guinea ( Otte & Alexander 1983). As mentioned above, it is represented in New Caledonia by Aphonoides ouveus only.

HABITAT. — According to Otte & Alexander (1983), Aphonoides may inhabit tree foliage.

REMARK

In New Caledonia, Aphonoides is known by only one species, Aphonoides ouveus Otte, 1987 originating from the Loyalty Islands. This species has been transferred to the genus Mistschenkoana Gorochov, 1990 by Gorochov (1990). Because of the lack of clear distinctive and diagnosic characters, and as we could not examine specimens of Aphonoides ouveus , we keep this species in its original genus, as hypothesized by Otte & Alexander (1983). The monophyly of both Aphonoides and Mistschenkoana will have to be checked.