Humutermes undetermined

Bourguignon, Thomas, Scheffrahn, Rudolf H., Nagy, Zoltán Tamás, Sonet, Gontran, Host, Benoît & Roisin, Yves, 2016, Towards a revision of the Neotropical soldierless termites (Isoptera: Termitidae): redescription of the genus Grigiotermes Mathews and description of five new genera, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 176 (1), pp. 15-35 : 22

HUMUTERMES KRISHNAI BOURGUIGNON & ROISIN SP. NOV. ( FIGS 3A–C, 3E , 7C , 8C , 9C, D , 10 , 11 ;

TABLE 4)

Material examined

Holotype. Worker , French Guiana, Nouragues Inselberg station (04°05′N, 52°41′W), deposited in the RBINS collection. ULB collection reference: G608, T. Bourguignon & Y. Roisin , 22.i.2010.

Paratypes. Workers and alates, French Guiana: Nouragues Inselberg station (04°05′N, 52°41′W), deposited in the RBINS. ULB collection reference: G608, collected by T. Bourguignon & Y. Roisin , 22.i.2010 (same colony as holotype); G175, G543, G608, G624, Nour 1.12, Nour 1.21: Nouragues Inselberg station (04°05′N, 52°41′W); Qua 4.0, Qua 4.2, Qua 4-6.3, Qua 4-8.1, Qua 5- 7.7: Petit Saut. Colombia: Llano _ T03 : Casanare, Hacienda Juan Solito .

Worker: Head rounded to slightly ellipsoid, covered by hundreds of small setae. Enteric valve composed of six spade-like pads, each endowed with about 20 long spines along their edge. The armature consists of six rounded, spade-like pads each endowed with about 20 long spines along their edges and sometimes a few spines along their midline. The cushions resemble pinecones composed of ten to 20 scales.

Imago: See description under genus heading.

Ecology and distribution

Like most Anoplotermes -group members, H. krishnai is an inconspicuous species. Alates were collected in January in French Guiana. We previously referred to this species, which was collected in many forest types in French Guiana, feeding on poorly degraded soil organic matter, as Anoplotermes sp. AB ( Bourguignon et al., 2009b, 2011a, b). Humutermes krishnai is known from French Guiana and Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and Trinidad.

Etymology

We named this species in honour of the late Professor Kumar Krishna because of his enormous contribution to termite systematics.

Figures

Figure 3. Worker. Humutermes krishnai sp. nov.: A, head; B, mandibles; C, foreleg; E, enteric valve (spread on slide). Worker. Humutermes noiroti sp. nov.: D, enteric valve (spread on slide).

Figure 7. Worker enteric valve armature, depicted by confocal microscopy. A, Grigiotermes hageni comb. nov.; B, Amplucrutermes inflatus sp. nov.; C, Humutermes krishnai sp. nov.; D, Humutermes noiroti sp. nov.; E, Hydrecotermes arienesho sp. nov.; F, Hydrecotermes kawaii sp. nov.; G, Patawatermes turricola comb. nov.; H, Patawatermes nigripunctatus comb. nov.; I, Rubeotermes jheringi comb. nov. (G, I, reproduced with the permission of Host et al., 2014).

Figure 8. Worker digestive tracts. A, Grigiotermes hageni comb. nov.; B, Amplucrutermes inflatus sp. nov.; C, Humutermes krishnai sp. nov.; D, Hydrecotermes arienesho sp. nov.; E, Patawatermes nigripunctatus comb. nov.; F, Rubeotermes jheringi comb. nov.. From left to right: dorsal, right, ventral, and left views.

Figure 9. Head, pronotum, mesonotum, and metanotum of alates. A, B, Grigiotermes hageni comb. nov.; C, D, Humutermes krishnai sp. nov.; E, F, Hydrecotermes arienesho sp. nov.; G, H, Hydrecotermes kawaii sp. nov.; I, J, Patawatermes turricola comb. nov.; K, L, Patawatermes nigripunctatus comb. nov.; M, N, Rubeotermes jheringi comb. nov. Scale bars = 1 mm.

Figure 10. Distribution maps of samples examined in this study.

Figure 11. Majority rule consensus phylogenetic tree including 13 focal species constructed by Bayesian inference. Numbers on branches are posterior probabilities. Species from South America are in blue font. The scale bar represents the number of mutation per site.