Xenicola brauni, Fianco & Engelking & Faria, 2020

Fianco, Marcos, Engelking, Phillip Watzke & Faria, Luiz R. R., 2020, Xenicola brauni sp. n., a new katydid species (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Phaneropterinae) from the Atlantic Forest, southeastern Brazil, Zootaxa 4778 (3), pp. 584-592 : 585-588

Xenicola brauni sp. nov.

Figs 1–4

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Diagnosis: Xenicola brauni sp. n. can be readily distinguished from its known congeners by the following characters: antennae with light and dark bands after the fifth antennomer; tegmina apex and costal margin black, truncated; proximal portion of tibia and distal portion of femur pallid, contrasting with nearby areas; male subgenital plate trapezoidal with posterior process longer than large; cerci almost straight.

Etymology: The specific epithet honours Dr. Holger Braun (Museo de La Plata, Argentina), who has made several and significant contributions to the knowledge of katydids.

Description: Holotype male (Figs. 1,2). Overall aspect: large-sized katydids, body cylindrical, antennae long, legs long and slender ( Fig. 1A,B ). Head ( Fig. 1C,D ): with a stripe from eye towards the pronotum, in a red-whitered pattern from top to bottom; fastigium of frons with at most a third of the scape width, with round ocelli. Sulcus of fastigium of the vertex reduced, not longer than half of the diameter of eye. Fastigium of the vertex with a negligible elevation. Antennae at least four times larger than the entire body; first five antennomers laterally black, medially yellowish; other antennomers with a repeating colouration pattern, intercalating light and dark bands; scape and pedicel cylindrical, both yellowish on the anterior and medial faces and black on lateral and posterior faces. Thorax: Pronotum ( Fig. 1D,F ): pronotal disc glabrous, yellowish with small reddish punctuations; anterior margin straight; posterior margin black and distinctly elevated; lateral lobes without a sulcus in the middle; a small sulcus interrupting the lateral carinae; lateral carinae with a curved tricolour band from anterior to posterior edge, with a crimson-white-crimson pattern, the bottom crimson line interrupted in the middle third of the lateral carina; anterior edge of lateral lobes of pronotum straight, inferior edge undulated, posterior edge straight, forming an angle of ca. 30º with the pronotal disc. Wings ( Fig. 1E ): tegmina truncated; stridulatory vein (A1) light yellow, very evident in dorsal view; teeth of stridulatory file almost with the same size, intertooth interval broader in the middle of stridulatory file. Legs: coxae and femora black on ventral surface; femora with small black punctuations on dorsal and medial surface; whitish in the proximal and distal portions; femur III brown on lateral face; tibiae laterally yellowish and medially whitish. Superior spine of genicular lobe at least two times longer than the inferior. Abdomen: tergites with several crimson granulations; traversed by a bicolour band (seen only laterally), white-crimson from top to bottom, the white one covering almost a fourth of the first tergite. Tergite X with posterior edge concave, medially depressed. Subgenital plate trapezoidal, posterior processes longer than wide, resembling the Batman mask; median keel longer than half of the length of the plate. Cerci almost straight, thickness decreasing gradually towards the apical curvature, with a black apical tooth on apex. Genitalia ( Fig. 2 ): phallus symmetrical, almost rectangular; ejaculatory vesicles small, oval, in the junction of dorsal fold and dorsal lobe; lower fold of ventral lobe cup-like, apex concave, not exceeding the ventral fold of the dorsal lobe; upper fold of ventral lobe smaller than the lower fold of ventral lobe, finger-like; ventral fold of dorsal lobe almost smooth, with two incisions near the middle; dorsal lobe in ventral view with a small concavity; dorsal lobe, in dorsal view, with a small-depression, tip rounded and with dot-like sclerotizations; dorsal lobe with two basal amorphous sclerotizations both in ventral and dorsal view; dorsal fold somewhat wide, at most half as wide as lower fold of ventral lobe.

Paratype female ( Fig. 3 ): larger than males. Fastigium of frons globose, other morphological details of head as in males; one light yellow strip from eye towards the pronotum. Anterior and posterior edge of pronotum concave. Lateral carinae bicolour, white on top and crimson on bottom; blackish on its beginning. Tegmina rounded, the right one with a line of squared stridulatory teeth, forming a W-like vein with a few long teeth. Coloration of legs as in males, with the exception of proximal part of femur II which is light-yellow. Abdomen plain brown coloured, with overall coloration marks as in males. Ovipositor two times longer than the pronotal disc, curved up and acuminate; serrulations beginning on the distal seventh of dorsal valves and distal fifth of ventral valves ( Fig. 3E ).

Coloration (live individuals) ( Fig. 4 ): body entirely green with small black scattered spots; a dorsolateral uninterrupted tricolour band from head to abdomen, white on the middle and reddish on the margins. Head entirely green, with scattered small black spots on vertex; greyish eye; pedicel light brown and antennae alternating between brown and white markings. With a black band on posterior edge of pronotum. Light brownish tegmina with black bands on anterior and posterior edges. Legs mostly light brownish with scattered small black spots; femora and tibiae with distal black areas; whitish articulations. Abdomen green with scattered small black spots; abdomen darker on top; brownish cerci. Female with a fully green tegmina and ovipositor, overall coloration as in male.

Type meterial: Holotype male, “ Bertioga , São Paulo, Brasil / Coleta ativa noturna/Engelking, P.W./ XII.2016 ”,

deposited at “Coleção Entomológica Padre Jesus Santiago Moure” ( DZUP), Curitiba , Brazil. Paratypes: one female and one male, both with the same label as holotype, also deposited in DZUP .

Measurements (mm): Holotype: BL: 17.6; TegL: 2.85; HW: 3.14; PrL: 3.36; PLL: 4.17 PrH: 1.63; FLiii: 27; TLiii: 30.7; SPL: 2.6; CL: 2.19; SFL: 1.54. Male paratype: BL: 18.3; TegL: 2.9; HW: 3.2; PrL: 3.5; PPL: 4.3; PrH: 1.53; FLiii: 26.5; TLiii: 31.6; SPL: 2.52; CL: 2.22; SFL: 1.38; TN: 26. Female paratype: BL: 23.25; TegL: 2.15; HW: 3.8; PrL: 4.2; PLL: 5.04; PrH: 1.76; FLiii: 28.2; TLiii: 32; SPL: 2.04; TN: 14; OL: 11.5.

Bionomy: One couple, the holotype and the female paratype, were found in post-copulatory behaviour, on plant leaves. Unfortunately, the copulation was not observed. In the post-copulation, the guarding behaviour is remarkable. The male stares at the female, puts his antennae above her body, but contact is apparently rare. The female removes the spermathophylax and spermatophore by curving her abdomen in direction to head, eating both. Although just three individuals were actually collected, several individuals had been observed on the adaxial surface of understory leaves, from 1 m to 1.5 m. After collected, the individuals, were put in a container with other insects, ate one dead stick insect (Phasmatodea). So, the species might be considered as omnivorous, opportunistically eating dead insects, as recorded for some other katydids ( Rentz, 2010).

Remarks: Xenicola brauni sp. n. is quite similar to X. xukrixi , since both share the size and shape of male cerci, and somewhat the subgenital plate, longer than large. The new species differs from X. dohrni and X. taroba by the coloration of antennae, with light and dark bands in X. brauni sp. n., pale in X. dohrni and X. taroba ; shape of the subgenital plate, longer than large in the new species and larger than long in X. dohrni and X. taroba ; the length of cerci also differs, short in X. brauni and long in X. dohrni and X. taroba . Unlike the other species of the genus, X. brauni sp. n. does not present a sulcus on the middle of the lateral lobes of pronotum. The new species only presents the sulci that pass through the lateral carinae without interrupting the coloured band that goes along its length, as in X. xukrixi . The sulci that goes through lateral carinae is dorsal-ventral oriented (“vertical”) in the new species, as in X. taroba , while diagonally oriented in X. dohrni and X. xukrixi . A detailed comparison among species of Xenicola can be found on Table 1.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Xenicola brauni sp. n., holotype, general morphology. A and B: habitus in lateral and dorsal view, respectively; C: head, frontal view; D: head and pronotum, lateral view; E: left tegmen, dorsal view; F: head and pronotum, dorsal view; G: subgenital plate and cerci, ventral view; H: cerci and tergite X, dorsal view. Scale bar: A and B = 2 cm; C-H = 2 mm.

FIGURE 2. Xenicola brauni sp. n., male genitalia; dl: dorsal lobe; vdl: ventral fold of dorsal lobe; ejd: ejaculatory duct; ejv: ejaculatory vesicle; df: dorsal fold; lw.vl: lower fold of ventral lobe; up.vl: upper fold of ventral lobe. Black arrow: dot-like sclerotizations. Grey arrow: amorphous sclerotization. Scale bar: 0.8 mm

FIGURE 3. Xenicola brauni sp. n., female general morphology. A and B: habitus in lateral and dorsal view, respectively; C: subgenital plate, ventral view; D: right wing, dorsal view; E: ovipositor, lateral view. Scale bar:A and B: 2 cm; C and D: 1 mm; E: 5 mm.

FIGURE 4. Xenicola brauni sp. n., live specimens. A: Male paratype, ventral view; B: Male paratype, lateral view; C: male holotype and female paratype, in post copulatory behaviour.