Platyverticula Jago, 1983

Popov †, George B., Fishpool, Lincoln D. C. & Rowell, C. Hugh F., 2019, A review of the Acridinae s. str. (Orthoptera: Acridoidea: Acrididae) of eastern Africa with taxonomic changes and description of new taxa, Journal of Orthoptera Research 28 (2), pp. 37-105 : 43-44

Platyverticula Jago, 1983

Platyverticula Jago, 1983: 116-121.

Type species.

- Platyverticula ritchiei Jago, 1983b, by original designation.

Description.

-As in the key to genera (pp. 44, 45). Of medium size, rather robust, superficially similar to Chokwea . Antennae thick, in male about 1.5x length of head and pronotum, in female slightly shorter; basal 3-4 segments of flagellum weakly flattened and broadened. Head acute in profile with frontal ridge straight, its margins wavy and irregular, constricted above ocellus, markedly divergent below it, but not constricted at junction with fastigium. Fastigium of vertex longer than broad in male, as broad as long in female. Arcuate transverse sulcus in forward position, but markedly less so than in Chokwea spp. Pronotal prozona lightly inflated in profile; posterior transverse sulcus forwardly arched, more so in female. Lateral carinae regularly incurved in prozona, flared outwards in metazona; hind margin of latter obtusely angularly emarginate. Tegmina symmetrically ovoid, their apices roughly level with hind margin of first abdominal tergite. Tympanum moderately developed, barely covered by tegmina. Hind femora moderately heavy, stockier than those of Chokwea ; lobes of hind knee rounded. External and internal genital structures in male of characteristic shape (Fig. 59). In female, genital structures are even more characteristic (Fig. 59A), especially in the truncated retractile ovipositor valves and tiny triangular vestigial cerci.

Discussion.

-A remarkable monotypic genus known only from Somalia. The specialized genital structures, particularly of the female, are unlike those of any other genus in this group, and indeed among the Acridinae as a whole. According to Jago (1983b: 120), the retractile ovipositor of Platyverticula resembles that of the North American gomphocerine Chloealtis spp., which are known to oviposit in rotten wood and even animal dung, suggesting a similar highly specialized egg-laying behavior in Platyverticula .

The original description included a second species, P. eucteana Jago, 1983 from northern Zambia, which is here transferred to the genus Chokwea (pp. 49). The cerci are unmodified in P. eucteana and similar in structure to those in Chokwea spp.