Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri (Eversmann, 1849)

Huang, Jianhua, Storozhenko, Sergey Yurievich, Mao, Benyong & Zheng, Zhemin, 2013, Taxonomic notes on Pternoscirta pulchripes Uvarov, 1925 (Orthoptera: Acrididae: Oedipodinae) with proposal of new synonyms in the genera Flatovertex and Mioscirtus, Zootaxa 3718 (6), pp. 545-560 : 555-558

Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri (Eversmann, 1849)

(Figs. 39 – 51)

Oedipoda wagneri Eversmann , in Kittary, 1849: 467; Eversmann, 1859: 145.

Mioscirtus wagneri (Eversmann) ; Saussure, 1888: 36; Jacobson, 1905: 253; Uvarov, 1912: 20; Uvarov, 1922: 729; Uvarov, 1927: 119; Kolossov, 1932: 116; Uvarov, 1942: 110; Bey-Bienko & Mishchenko, 1951: 558, 587; Johnston, 1956: 520; Dirsh, 1956: 223; Shumakov, 1963: 146; Dirsh, 1965: 491; Fernandes, 1968: 1–3; Johnston, 1968: 349; Descamps, 1970: 33; Harz, 1975: 508; Centre for Overseas Pest Research, 1982: 491; Cordero et al, 2007: 3–16; Ortego et al, 2009: 623– 633; Ortego et al, 2010: 472–483; Ortego et al, 2011: 1127–1144; Ortego et al, 2012a: 103–110; Ortego et al, 2012b: 481– 492.

Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri (Eversmann) ; Bey-Bienko & Mistshenko, 1951: 587; Xia, 1958: 158; Zheng, 1993: 224; Zheng & Xia, 1998: 149.

Mioscirtus varentzowi Zubowsky, 1896: 186 ; Jacobson, 1905: 253. Syn. Nov.

Flatovertex nigritibialis Zheng & Zhang , in Zheng et al, 2006: 355. Syn. Nov.

Type locality: TURKMENISTAN (Firiuza).

Location of type: Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences (ZINRAS), St. Petersburg, Russia.

Male. Body length: 12.0–15.0 mm; pronotum length: 2.5–3.0 mm; tegmina length: 10.1–14.8 mm; hind femur length: 6.0–9.0 mm.

Body small.

Head. Head shorter than pronotum, with sparse shallow punctures. Face slightly oblique in profile view, connecting blunt-roundly with vertex; frontal ridge sulcate throughout, with lateral sides nearly parallel in upper half, distinctly constricted just below median ocellus and then broadened forwards to clypeus; facial keels distinct and nearly straight, slightly curved backwards near the anterior margin of the face. Genae smooth, with a distinct short carina and a broad vertical depression near the posteroventral corner. Vertex slightly broad, deeply and broadly depressed, with anterior margin straight and lateral carinae distinctly raised and converged with indistinct occipital median carina, interocular space one and a half times as broad as the width of frontal ridge between antennal sockets. Antennae filiform, slightly exceeding beyond the posterior margin of pronotum, with median segments three times as long as broad. Eyes large, oval and protruding, with vertical diameter one and a third times as horizontal diameter and one and two thirds times as subocular furrow.

FIGURES. 39–51. 39–40. Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri (Eversmann, 1859) , holotype female. 39. Labels. 40. Dorsal view. 41–42. Mioscirtus varentzowi Zubowsky, 1896 , holotype female. 41. Labels. 42. Dorsal view. 43–51. Flatovertex nigritibialis Zheng & Zhang, 2006 , holotype male. 43. Labels. 44. Dorsal view. 45. Lateral view. 46. Head in frontal view. 47. Head and pronotum in dorsal view. 48. Head and pronotum in lateral view. 49. Terminal portion of abdomen in dorsal view. 50. Outer surface of hind femur. 51. Inner surface of hind femur.

Thorax. Pronotum in dorsal view slightly constricted anterior to posterior transverse sulcus and broadened posteriorly; dorsum covered with several short curved carinae forming a large semicircle and a much smaller circle at prozona, coarsely carinate-rugose at metazona; anterior margin slightly angulate in the middle and posterior margin blunt-angularly protruding, median carina distinctly raised, straight and deeply incised by posterior transverse sulcus in lateral view, lateral carina absent; only posterior transverse sulcus distinct, metazona slightly longer than prozona; lateral lobe sparsely punctured, nearly rectangular, with anterior, posterior and lower margin distinctly carinate, anteroventral corner bluntly angulate and posteroventral corner broadly rounded, two distinct parallel vertical sulci deriving from median and posterior transverse sulci respectively. Interspace of mesosternal lobes about two times as long as broad, metasternal lobes separate. Tegmina narrow and long, apex broadly rounded, distinctly exceeding beyond apex of hind femur; medial area as broad as cubital area, precostal, medial and cubital area all with intercalary veins; hind wing long triangular, slightly shorter than tegmina. Middle femora with upper side distinctly longitudinally sulcate and carinately marginate; hind femora short and stout, three and a half times as long as broad, lower genicular lobes rounded; hind tibiae with eleven spines both internally and externally, lower inner spur slightly longer than upper spur and not reaching the middle of the first tarsal segment; arolium small and rhombic, not reaching the middle of claw.

Abdomen. Tympanum developed, aperture large and oval. Supra-anal plate triangular, with distinct carinate margin, apex pointed; median portion broadly longitudinally sulcate throughout and folded with a distinct transverse carina. Cerci long and conical, slightly curved internally in dorsal view, exceeding the apex of the supraanal plate. Subgenital plate short and conical in lateral view, apex truncate in dorsal view.

Coloration. Body pale yellowish brown. Antennae reddish brown. Head and pronotum covered with sparse black puntures. Eyes yellowish brown with sparse black maculations and a distinct narrow horizontal yellowish brown band in the middle. Pronotum with indistinct X-shaped pale stripe. Tegmina brown, with a broad black longitudinal band near the middle portion of the costal area and a small white triangular maculation in the middle of the anterior side of the black maculation, apex with sparse small black spots; hind wings in basal part yellow or pinkish, with indistinct blackish brown transverse band in the middle portion, apical portion of wing hyaline, main veins black. Fore and middle legs with two to three black transverse bands at femora and tibiae, hind femora with two black maculae in the inner side, knee black, with pale pregenicular annulus; hind tibiae pale with black annulae at the apex and near the base, tibial spines black at apical half.

Female. Body length: 20.0– 23.5 mm; pronotum length: 4.5–4.9 mm; tegmina length: 16.8–24.0 mm; hind femur length: 10.7–13.2 mm.

Similar to but larger than male. Ovipositor short and stout with apices slightly pointed. Hind wing pinkish at the basal area in some individuals.

Materials examined. Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri : holotype female (ZINRAS), KAZAKHSTAN: Atyrau Province, Inder (Figs. 39–40); one male (SNU), CHINA: Kuitun, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, 21 July 1985, collected by Limin Cao; one male (SNU), CHINA: Wusu, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, 28 July 1985, collected by Limin Cao; one female with hind wing pinkish at the basal area (SNU), CHINA: Kuitun, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, 22 July 1985, collected by Limin Cao, and more than one hundred specimens from UKRAINE, RUSSIA and KAZAHSTAN (ZMMSU and ZINRAS). Mioscirtus varentzowi : neotype female (ZINRAS), TURKMENISTAN: Ashgabat, 14 – 19 July 1996, Collected by P. Warentzow, here designated (Figs. 41–42) and about dozen specimens from vicinity of Ashgabat (ZINRAS). Flatovertex nigritibialis : holotype male (SNU), Bole County, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China, 23 July 2005, collected by Yanfeng Wang (Figs. 43–51).

Distribution. The nominal subspecies is distributed in UKRAINE (southern part westward to Dnieper River), RUSSIA (southern regions of European part northward to Volgograd), KAZAKHSTAN, TURKMENISTAN and CHINA (Xinjiang).

Remarks. Flatovertex nigritibialis was described based on a single male from Xinjiang, China (Zheng et al, 2006). When we reexamined types of Flatovertex , Flatovertex nigritibialis showed different appearance from two other Flatovertex species and certainly could not be assigned to the same genus together with Flatovertex rufotibialis and Flatovertex cyaneitibialis . A reidentification of the types revealed that Flatovertex nigritibialis completely agreed with Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri morphologically. Therefore, we propose Flatovertex nigritibialis herein as a junior synonym of Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri .

Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri was described as Oedipoda wagneri by Eversmann in the Kittary’s paper (Kittary, 1849) based on the single female from ‘Indersk’ in Russian Empire (now Inder in Kazakhstan: Atyrau Province, Inder District, valley of Ural River). This specimen is kept in the Collection of the Zoological Institute ( Russia: St. Petersburg) and studied by us (Figs. 39–40).

Mioscirtus varentzowi was described based on the single female from ‘Kopet-dagh: angustae Firjuse’ in Russian Empire (now Firiuza in Kopet Dag Mts, about 35 km W Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan) collected on 11 July 1893 by P. Warentzow (Zubowsky, 1896). The Zubowsky’s collections of Orthoptera are kept in the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University (main part) and in the Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences (few specimens). We carefully examined both collections, but the type specimen of Mioscirtus varentzowi was not found. We believe that the holotype of this species is missing. Therefore the neotype of Mioscirtus varentzowi is designated herein from the specimens of the Zubowsky’s collection deposited in the Zoological Institute: neotype – female, Turkmenistan: Ashgabat, 14–19 July 1996 collected by P. Warentzow (Figs. 41–42). This specimen agrees well with the original description of Zubowsky including the pinkish color of the basal part of hind wings, but slightly smaller.

Nowadays the conception of dividing of subspecies of M. wagneri is discussed (Ortego et al, 2009; Ortego et al, 2010; Ortego et al, 2012a). Traditionally Mioscirtus varentzowi was considered as a synonym of Mioscirtus wagneri rogenhoferi (Saussure, 1888) which was originally described by the single female from Baghdad (Saussure, 1888) and distinguished from the nominal subspecies by large size only (Uvarov, 1927; Tarbinsky, 1940; Bey-Bienko & Mishchenko, 1951; Harz, 1975; Eades at al., 2013). The studied specimens of M. varentzowi from the vicinity of Ashgabat are characterized by the measurements in Table 1 . It almost does not differ from the maximal measurements of specimens of the nominal subspecies from Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine ( Table 1 ). On the contrary, the specimens of Mioscirtus wagneri rogenhoferi from Iran in the collection of Zoological Institute are considerably larger ( Table 1 ), which agrees well with the measurements of specimens from Azerbaijan given by Tarbinsky (1940). Thus, we propose herein Mioscirtus varentzowi as a junior synonym of Mioscirtus wagneri wagneri , but not a synonym of M. wagneri rogenhoferi . Therefore all previous records of Mioscirtus wagneri rogenhoferi from Central Asia belong to the nominal subspecies.

The using of the species name verentzovi in OSF (Eades et al, 2013) is due to a mistake following the book of Bey-Bienko & Mistchenko (1951). Bey-Bienko changed the original name varentzowi to varentzovi because he decided that Varentzov was the correct translation of the collector’s name (Bey-Bienko & Mistchenko, 1951). Thus, the name verentzovi is incorrectly spelled according to Article 33.3 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature., 1999).

* All measurements are expressed in millimeters.

Tables

TABLE 1. Measurements of the three subspecies of Mioscirtus wagneri.

Subspecies	body length	pronotum length	tegmina length	hind femur length
	male female	male female	male female	male female
Mioscirtus varentzowi	12.9–14.0 23.0–23.5	2.8–3.0 4.8–4.9	13.1–14.8 22.5–24.0	8.0–8.5 12.7–12.8
M.wagneri wagneri	12.9–15.0 21.0–22.5	2.8–3.0 4.7–4.8	10.1–14.0 16.8–23.5	7.8–9.0 10.7–13.2
M.wagneri rogenhoferi	17.6 27.5	3.4 5.3	18.4 25.0	9.9 14.2