Notocyrtus Burmeister, 1835

Gil-Santana, Hélcio R., 2022, New records, taxonomic notes, and the description of a new species of Harpactorinae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae) from French Guiana, Zootaxa 5105 (3), pp. 381-400 : 392

Notocyrtus Burmeister, 1835

Notocyrtus was revised by Carvalho & Costa (1992, 1993), with further descriptions of three species by Costa & Gil-Santana (2001), Gil-Santana & Costa (2001) and Gil-Santana & Forero (2009), resulting in 24 current valid species in the genus, among which only Notocyrtus fornicatus (Fabricius) was recorded from French Guiana so far ( Maldonado 1990, Carvalho & Costa 1992, 1993). Taxonomical notes, new records of occurrences to other countries and observations about the biology of some species of Notocyrtus were provided by Gil-Santana (2007, 2008), Gil-Santana & Forero (2009) and Alvarez et al. (2019).

Species of Notocyrtus have been recognized as mimetics of meliponine bees ( Haviland 1931, Jackson, 1973, Roubik 1989, Gil-Santana 2008), in which the mimicry is enhanced by an inflated pronotum ( Haviland 1931, Jackson 1973). Some species of this genus are variable in color, particularly of the pronotum, which may be a result of mimicking different meliponine bees in different localities ( Jackson 1973). Alvarez et al. (2019) recorded a “plantreduviid-bee”, interaction involving species of Notocyrtus , hypothesizing about the functionality of the mimetic complexes described by them.

The structure of the head, shape of the pronotum and tibiae, and, to a lesser extent, the color patterns were emphasized as good features for separating species of Notocyrtus by Carvalho & Costa (1992, 1993). Concerning the male genitalia, these authors only described the parameres, some of which were considered among the diagnostic characteristics of some species.

New figures of the male genitalia of N. tibanae Costa & Gil-Santana, 2001 , more detailed than those provided by Costa & Gil-Santana (2001), are presented to improve the knowledge of the male genital structures in this species.