Funkikonia Kato, 1931

Jones, Joshua R. & Deitz, Lewis L., 2009, Phylogeny and systematics of the leafhopper subfamily Ledrinae (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) 2186, Zootaxa 2186 (1), pp. 1-120 : 41

Genus Funkikonia Kato

(Pl. 1I, 6B, 9B)

Funkikonia Kato, 1931: 438 .

Type species. Ledra tuberculata Kato, 1929:545 , fig. 2, a–c, by original designation.

Synonymy. None.

Description. Adapted from Kato (1931): Vertex of head about as long as breadth between eyes and almost as long as pronotum, the lateral margins obliquely straight for a little in front of eyes and then obliquely subangularly pointed to apex, strongly centrally longitudinally ridged, with a more obscure short oblique ridge on each side; eyes and ocelli very prominent, the latter placed on disk behind middle and distinctly nearer to each other than to eyes. Pronotum convex, without central longitudinal carina, each side deeply sinuated; tegmina subhyaline, veins prominent; posterior tibiae non-dilated. Aedeagus without subapical processes.

Species. [3]: taiwana Cai & Huang; tuberculata (Kato) ; zheana Cai & Huang.

Range. China (Zhejiang: Longwangshan), Taiwan (Funkiko; Sungkang; Tsui Feng).

Host plants. Acer palmatum (Japanese maple).

Material examined. F. tuberculata : 1 male, Taiwan, TARI, JRJ _ Led 1_449, 1 (abdomen missing), Taiwan, TARI, JRJ _ Led 1_101; Funkikonia sp. 1 : 1 female, Taiwan, NCSU, JRJ _ Led 1_099; Funkikonia sp. 2 : 1 female, China, USNM, JRJ _ Led 1_100 .

Remarks. Kato (1931) stated that the type specimen of F. tuberculata was in his personal collection. The current location of his collection, however, is unknown. It may now be in any one of a number of Oriental institutions, or may have been lost altogether.

Two male ledrines from the TARI collection (JRJ_Led1_101, 449) were identified by the first author as F. tuberculata and used in the phylogenetic analyses. Females of Funkikonia , however, are undescribed. Kato’s (1931) characters for crown shape describe a male, but probably do not apply to females, if the species are sexually dimorphic, as in other similar species. Unidentified ledrine females examined from the TARI and NMNS collections, though differing from F. tuberculata in size and texture, nevertheless first appeared to belong to this genus, and were identified as such for use in the phylogenetic analyses ( Funkikonia sp. 1 , Funkikonia sp. 2 ). The analyses, however, instead placed them separately from F. tuberculata as sister to Ledropsis (in part) + Ledra (in part) ( Figs. 1–3 ). The unidentified females, then, may not belong to Funkikonia ; or, the separate placement may be an artefact of inadequate taxon sampling or differential character sampling of males and females. The females identified as Funkikonia are larger and have more produced crowns than F. tuberculata , and are more tuberculate in overall dorsal texture. It is possible that the female examined from Taiwan (JRJLed1_099) may belong to one of two described species (both males) of Funkikonia from Taiwan.

Members of this genus strongly resemble Ledropsis in overall body shape and the abruptly declivous pronotum, and are closely related to it, as shown in the analyses. Kato’s 1931 redescription of Funkikonia does not actually explain how the two genera differ. The key diagnostic character for F. tuberculata —the large sclerotized tubercle on the forewings—is present, though generally far less produced and sclerotized, in many other ledrine species, including Petalocephala and Tituria , and may be a plesiomorphic and/or highly plastic character. It is given by Cai and He (1997) as a diagnostic character for Kuohledra Cai and He , which may therefore be a synonym of Funkikonia (see discussion under Kuohledra ). In F. tuberculata and the unidentified Funkikonia female specimens, the tubercle has a texture that is sandpaper-like, granular, punctate, or a combination of these. This suite of accompanying textures for the tubercle may be synapomorphic for Funkikonia .

Kato’s original description of Funkikonia (1929) provides only general states of color and texture but little that is useful for making these distinctions.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Phylogram of relationships generated from cladistic analysis of entire dataset: {= [Ledrinae sensu Oman et al. (1990) dataset] + [dataset of non-ledrine taxa included to provide resolution to ingroup taxa anticipated to ultimately place outside of Ledrinae (marked in italic bold with an asterisk*)]}. Analysis in PAUP* was rooted to Bathysmatophorus shabliovskii, and resulted in a single most parsimonious tree with a cost of 1719 steps. Bremer support values are given above the branch to which they correspond. Squares, circles and triangles indicate tribal placements of included genera in Oman et al. (1990). The boundary of Ledrinae, as it is here recognized, is marked with a black star.

FIGURE 2. Phylogram of relationships generated from cladistic analysis of pruned dataset, including only species herein recognized to belong to the subfamily Ledrinae. Analysis in PAUP* was again rooted to B. shabliovskii; Aphrodes was included as putative sister group to the Ledrinae. This second analysis resulted in a single most parsimonious tree with a cost of 1185 steps. Bremer support values are given above the branch to which they correspond; the black star marks the phylogenetic boundary of Ledrinae. Ingroup resolution is topologically identical to that in Fig. 1, but branch lengths and Bremer supports vary.

FIGURE 3. Phylogram of summarized relationships among Ledrinae genera generated from a reduced dataset including single exemplars of each available genus. If available, the type species was chosen (marked with an asterisk*). Additional exemplars were included in cases where polyphyly among species was demonstrated in previous analyses, and where a male and a female of different species in the genus were needed to provided all of the pertinent characters (i. e., genitalia). Analysis (in PAUP*, rooted to B. shabliovskii, with Aphrodes included as putative sister group to the Ledrinae) resulted in five equally parsimonious trees (cost 933). The selected topology differs slightly from Fig. 2 in the placement of E. planata as sister to T. antica, in Titiella and Hangklipia not being placed as sister taxa, and in Jukaruka being placed with Platyledra instead of Ledropsella. Numbers at internodes correspond to a list of apomorphies generated from this analysis (see Table 1). Higher taxa within Ledrinae recognized herein, including new tribes (with their distributions), and informal genus and species groups, are indicated by symbols. The inclusion of Dusuna within the Petalocephala genus group is at present uncertain, as indicated by the question marks above the open triangles.