Danacea Laporte de Castelnau
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publication ID |
https://doi.org/ 10.1184/r1/6705962.v1 |
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persistent identifier |
https://treatment.plazi.org/id/0397A501-BF3C-B04E-FF29-3F1DACC4F82A |
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treatment provided by |
Felipe |
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scientific name |
Danacea Laporte de Castelnau |
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Genus Danacea Laporte de Castelnau
Danacea has been split ( Liberti 1985) into two subgenera, Danacea and Allodanacaea , that mainly differ in the position of the median lobe’s apical orifice: ventral in Danacea (Danacea) and dorsal (thus conforming to the other Dasytidae , see for instance Figs 1 and 5 View FIGURES 1–11 ) in D. ( Allodanacaea ); differences in the external morphology are reported in the identification key below. The Danacea s. str. were split by Schilsky (1897a)
into four groups (see also Liberti 1989), based on the hair pattern on the disc; these groups are only used to help identification and bear little systematic meaning. In Sardinia only groups 1, 2 and 4 can be found (see key below).
The genus includes 12 taxa in Sardinia, 10 of which strictly endemic and 2 Sardo-Corsican. Species identification is not easy particularly in subgenus Allodanacaea , where dissection can be necessary. The definition of some terms is useful to work through the key:
- disc: the central area of pronotum, easily and immediately seen when looking at the insect from above;
- hairs: in Danacea , hairs are intermediate between setae and scales, rather short and thick, green, greygreen or yellowish. They cover the whole body and hide, to a good extent, the colour of the underlying integuments, which are usually dark green to blackish; the pattern made by such hairs on the disc of pronotum is a character widely used for indentification;
- ornate elytra: in Danacea the elytra are usually uniformly covered with hairs; however in certain species, specimens or entire populations show elytral patterns of differently coloured hairs (for instance green and white) and/or symmetrically arranged naked areas. The presence of individuals with ornate elytra is frequent in some group 1 species (see below), although it has little systematic meaning, as it is rather common to find both pure populations (i.e. populations where all the individuals have either normal or ornate elytra) and mixed ones. Ornate elytra can also be found in some group 3 species, not found in the Sardinian fauna.
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