Pseudoyersinia maroccana, Battiston & Correas & Lombardo & Mouna & Payne & Schütte, 2018

Battiston, Roberto, Correas, José, Lombardo, Francesco, Mouna, Mohamed, Payne, Keith & Schütte, Kai, 2018, Morphological convergences in Ameles Burmeister and Pseudoyersinia Kirby: Taxonomic implications of wing reduction and flight predisposition in some West-Mediterranean Amelini (Insecta: Mantodea), Zootaxa 4377 (1), pp. 21-38 : 32-34

Pseudoyersinia maroccana n. sp.

Type. Holotype ♂: Morocco, Ifrane , 1650 m, 12.IX.1970, leg. Messina, Costa, Nobile ( DBAC).

Type locality: Azrou , Morocco.

Distribution: Morocco.

Material examined: 7♂ 11♀ ; Paratypes: Morocco, Ifrane , 1650 m, 12.IX.1970, leg. Messina, Costa, Nobile, DBAC, 5♀ ; Pista Azrou- Oum er Rbia springs, 1600 m, 10.IX.1970, leg. Motta, DBAC, 1♂ 1♀ ; Aïn Kharzouza (Middle Atlas) 850m, XVII–XVIII.1958, leg. Prujat, coll. Panouse ISR, 1♀ ; Aguelman Azigza 1800 m, XVIII.1949, coll. J. P. Panouse, ISR, 2♂ 1♀ ; El Ksiba , 16.IX.1947, coll. J. P. Panouse, ISR, 1♂ 1♀ ; Ifrane , XVII– IX.1937, leg. Naudé, coll. Panouse, ISR, 1♀ ; Ifrane , 1957, coll. Panouse, ISR, 1♂ ; Ifrane , 01.X.1957, coll. J. P. Panouse, ISR 1♂ ; Tanger seaside, 15–31.XVIII, ISR, 1♀ .

Taxonomic notes. Kaltenbach labelled a series of brachypterous Amelini preserved in the Museum of the University Mohammed V-Agdal in Rabat as “ Pseudoyersinia maroccana (Uvar.) ”, probably in reference to Ameles maroccana Uvarov, 1931 (Uvarov never named any species as Pseudoyersinia maroccana ). However, Kaltenbach did not leave any notes associated on this series, which we consider representative of the thin separation between these two important and widespread genera. Badih & Ruiz (1998) noted that these specimens do not belong to Ameles maroccana but could probably represent an undescribed species. Our analysis indeed revealed it to be a new species, and thus we herein take the opportunity to describing includes naming describe it.

Diagnosis. Similar to Pseudoyersinia occidentalis but with eyes clearly rounded in both sexes (conical in P. occidentalis ), without apical tubercle (present in P. occidentalis ). Forewings slightly longer than pronotum in males (shorter in P. occidentalis ), and pseudophallus with a small but well sclerotized apical spine (absent in P. occidentalis ) ( Fig. 9 , 10 ).

Description male. Head: 1.24–1.70 times as wide as pronotal supracoxal dilation. Eyes rounded without traces of apical tubercle; vertex straight, lower than imaginary line connecting apex of eyes; frontal shield transverse, upper margin acute, surface with two longitudinal carinae.

Thorax: Pronotum short, 1.69 times as long as its maximum width; lateral margins smooth; pronotal supracoxal dilation with rounded lateral margins. Anterior legs moderately slender: femora 1.13 times as long as pronotum and 2.84 times as long as their maximum width; spines with dark tips. Middle and hindlegs slender with very short hairs. Flight organs brachypterous, sub-opaque almost concolour with the body, forewings 1.20 times as long as the pronotum.

Abdomen: Cylindrical. Supranal plate triangular, with rounded apex. Cerci not exceeding the apex of the subgenital plate. Genitalia ( Fig. 10 ) with hypophallus rhomboidal, its distal process short, with two teeth separated by an acute incision; left epiphallus with a slender hook-shaped titillator; pseudophallus with slender and hookshaped with a small spine emerging laterally on the apex; right epiphallus wide with numerous short spines.

Etymology. We named this species as maroccana to retain Alfred Kaltenbach’s original idea, in agreement to the labels of the specimens he studied.

Remarks. This species exhibits all the characters diagnostic of Pesudoyersinia: males with shortened wings (brachypterous), and a short spine on the pseudophallus; Females are almost indistinguishable from Ameles (in particular A. maroccana ) expect for their stouter built, wide abdomen, and brachypterous wings.

Phenotypic variability, morphometrics and flight predisposition. The intraspecific variability in male forewings/pronotum length calculated within the genus Ameles using the data of Battiston & Fontana (2005) and in Agabiti et al. (2010), for a total of 220 specimens reported for 7 different macropterous species ( Fig. 11 ), varies between 1 and 23%. The highest rates of intraspecific variability in the genus were found in short-winged A. maroccana (26%). The overall absolute value of these ratios varies between 3.4 and 5.8 in macropterous species, while in all the short-winged species here considered were generally smaller, between 2.16 and 3.61.

Scaling the pictures of wing sections to 16 colour images resulted in a distinct separation between A. s. obscura and Litaneutria obscura from all the other species herein considered. The software interpreted and merged similar colours in a single dark-brown tone (HTML colour code: #523931) for the smoked-wing species and in a mix of nearly grey-shades for all the other hyaline species ( Fig. 12 ).

The size of the ocelli resulted strongly correlated to the length of the forewings (Pearson coefficient: 0.89): larger ocelli means longer forewings ( Fig. 13 ).

Figures

FIGURE 9. Pseudoyersinia occidentalis. Male holotype (left) from Agadir (Morocco); male genitalia dorsal view (right). Scale bar = 1 mm.

FIGURE 11. Comparison of minimum and maximum values (mm) between pronotum (x axis) and forewings lengths (y axis) of short winged species herein considered, in addition to other selected macropterous species (data from Battiston & Fontana, 2005 and Agabiti et al., 2010). The resulting graphic shows how different species can be grouped by estimating the ratio between these two variables.

FIGURE 13. Correlation between the width of the ocelli (x axis) and the length (in mm) of forewings (y axis, as “tegmina”), showing an almost linear tendency, i.e. larger ocelli mean longer forewings.

FIGURE10. Pseudoyersinia maroccana. From left to right (allin dorsal view):male holotype, female allotype, male genitalia (holotype) and line drawings of the distal process of hypophallus showing variation across selected paratypes. Scale bar for genitalia = 1 mm.

FIGURE12.Analysis of the colourcomponents in thecell membraneof hind wings of A.s. obscura(1,2,3), A.maroccana (4), A. andreae (5), A. picteti (6), A. gracilis (7), A. spallanzania(8), A. decolor (9), and L. obscura(10). Comparison of the output obtained from original 32bits photo wit a palette of about 16 millions of colours (4106 used), and scaled to 16bits photo with a palette of 16 colours(15 used).