Lasiacantha aemula ( Drake, 1947 ) Cassis & Symonds, 2011

Cassis, Gerasimos & Symonds, Celia, 2011, Systematics, biogeography and host plant associations of the lace bug genus Lasiacantha Stål in Australia (Insecta: Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Tingidae) 2818, Zootaxa 2818 (1), pp. 1-63 : 18

Lasiacantha aemula ( Drake, 1947) , nov. comb.

( Fig. 7b )

Tingis aemula Drake, 1947: 115 (sp. nov.); Drake and Ruhoff, 1965: 390 (catalogue); Cassis and Gross, 1995: 435 (catalogue).

Holotype. ♀, AUSTRALIA: South Australia: Ooldea , 30°27’ S 13150’ E, A. M. Lea ( USNM, Drake collection). Dorsal habitus photo of type ( Fig. 7b ).

Diagnosis. Lasiacantha aemula is recognised by the following combination of characters: broadly uniform colouration, with medium to dark brown band across costal area; major setiferous tubercles on pronotum and hemelytra very short, terminal seta subequal or longer than tuberculate base and mostly recurved, except for anteriorly on the paranota where straight; anterior margin of pronotum, keel of collum and pronotal carinae with major setiferous tubercles; costal area with setiferous tubercles extending halfway along hemelytral margin; carinate margins of discoidal area with major setiferous tubercles, posterior angle without clump of setiferous tubercles; head with flattened, elongate scalelike setae; pronotum with hairlike setae only, moderately elongate, weakly thickened; hemelytra with sparsely distributed hairlike setae at base, in subcostal and costal areas; cephalic spines greatly elongate, medial spine straight; AIV weakly clavate apically; collum subtriangular; carinae mostly uniseriate; paranota two areolae wide; costal area uniformly two areolae wide; subcostal area two areolae wide; areolae on paranota and costal area moderately small and uniformly round shaped; areolae in discoidal and subcostal areas subequal in size to areolae in sutural area.

Host plant. Unknown.

Distribution. Known only from the type locality at Ooldea (Oldea [sic] in original description ( Drake 1947)) in southern South Australia, on the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain.

Remarks. Lasiacantha aemula is most closely related to L. vittata , L. serraseta , and L. discordis , with all four species possessing a subtriangular collum, highly elevated pronotal carinae, and a brown band across the costal area of the hemelytra. It is very similar to L. vittata and L. serraseta (and all differing from L. discordis ) in its overall uniformly reddish to pale brown colouration, smallish and uniformly sized areolae in the paranota and costal area, and all the areolae in the hemelytra are subequal in size. Lasiacantha aemula and L. serraseta have mostly uniseriate pronotal carinae, differing from L. discordis and L. vittata by the mostly biseriate pronotal carinae. However, L. aemula is easily distinguished from these three species by the paranota with two rows of areolae (rather than three rows in the other species; or sometimes biseriate in L. discordis with large irregularly shaped areolae), costal area uniformly biseriate with areolae moderately small and uniformly round shaped (triseriate in vittata and serraseta ; mostly biseriate in discordis , but sometimes triseriate at widest point wide and cells mostly large and irregularly shaped), slightly more elongate discoidal area, and setiferous tubercles on posterior half of paranota, and costal area very short with recurved terminal setae (rather than all mostly very short and straight terminal setae). Also, the occipital cephalic spines in L. aemula do not appear to be as greatly elongate and curved as in the other related species. The recurved terminal setae on the setiferous tubercles in L. aemula is a putatively autapomorphic character for the Australian Lasiacantha species , however these recurved terminal setae are also present in one Inoma species , I. arrernte Cassis and Symonds.

Figures

FIGURE 7. (a) Photographs of Australian Lasiacantha larvae, L. aureolus sp. nov and L. luritja sp. nov; (b) Photograph of holotype of Lasiacantha aemula (Drake, 1947) nov. comb..