Tuponia (Tuponia) montandoni Reuter, 1899

Carapezza, Attilio & Rădac, Ioan Alexandru, 2021, The genus Tuponia Reuter, 1875 in Romania, with two new synonymies (Heteroptera: Miridae), Zootaxa 5023 (1), pp. 59-76 : 68-71

Tuponia (Tuponia) montandoni Reuter, 1899

( Figs. 6A–B , 7A–C , 9 )

Tuponia macedonica Wagner, 1957 . syn. n.

Tuponia (Tuponia) dentifer Wagner, 1974 (syn. by Linnavuori (1995))

Type specimens of T. montandoni examined. LECTOTYPE (♀), by present designation: “ ROUMANIE \ d. Rim. Sar. Plainesci\ A. L. Montandon [printed] \\ Tuponia \ montandoni Rt. [Reuter’s handwriting] \\ LECTOTYPUS \ Tuponia montandoni \ Reuter, 1899 \ des. A. Carapezza \ & I.A. Rădac, 2021” [red cardboard, printed] ( MGAB) ( Fig. 6C ) . PARALECTOTYPE (♀): “ ROUMANIE \ d. Rim. Sar. Plainesci\ A. L. Montandon [printed] \\ Tuponia \ montandoni Rt. [Reuter’s handwriting] \\ PARALECTOTYPUS \ Tuponia montandoni \ Reuter, 1899 \ des. A. Carapezza \ & I.A. Rădac, 2021” [red cardboard, printed] ( MGAB) .

Type specimen of T. macedonica examined. MACEDONIA: Gyevgelia , 18-22.v.1955, holotype ♂, Schubert leg. ( ZMUH) .

Type specimen of T. dentifer examined. CYPRUS: Ayios Amvrosios , 25.v.1972, holotype ♂, H. Eckerlein leg. ( ZMUH) .

Material examined: ROMANIA: Dolj County: Maglavit , 44.030087°N 23.079309°E, 16.vi.2017, 6 ♂♂ 8 ♀♀, on Tamarix ramosissima ; Satu Mare County: Negrești-Oaș , 47.855727°N 23.426137°E, 17.vii.2019, 1 ♂ 3 ♀♀, on Tamarix sp .; Timiș County: Timișoara, 45.741743° 21.211696°], 05.vii.2018, 6 ♂♂ 3 ♀♀, on Tamarix ramosissima ; Timișoara , 45.765455°N 21.245616°E, 16.vi.2018, 1 ♂ 1 ♀, on Tamarix ramosissima .

GREECE: Chalkidiki: Ormos Panagias , 4.vi.1989, 5 ♂♂ 11 ♀♀, on Tamarix sp. , A. Carapezza leg. ( ACPI) .

CYPRUS: Cape Kiti , 26. iv.1997, 10 ♂♂ 7 ♀♀, on Tamarix sp. , A. Carapezza leg. ( ACPI); Akrotiri, 27. iv.1997, 33 ♂♂ 49 ♀♀, on Tamarix tetragyna, A. Carapezza leg. ( ACPI) .

Published records for Romania: Plainesci ( Reuter 1899); Râmnicul Sărat ( Montandon 1907); Dumbrăveni ( Sienkiewicz 1964).

Note: All published records refer to the type series, identified with different toponyms. The locality Plainesci (= Pălinești ) from Râmnicu Sărat District has undergone administrative changes and it is now known as Dumbrăveni (Vrancea County) .

Diagnosis. Tuponia montandoni is recognized by the following combination of characters: in living specimens ( Fig. 7A ) head, pronotum and scutellum greenish, hemelytra white-yellowish with a feebly contrasting pale ochraceous transverse band across distal third of corium and apex of clavus (in dry specimens dorsal green areas turn yellowish ( Figs. 6A–B ) making the whole dorsal surface more or less uniformly yellow-ochraceous); body length 2.5–4.3 mm in males, 2.7–4.3 mm in females (in Romanian specimens: 2.5–2.8 mm in males, 2.7–3.3 mm in females); body oval-elongate, slightly more ovate in females; ocular index 1.6–2.5 in males, 2.0– 2.5 in females (in Romanian specimens 2.0– 2.5 in males, 2.3–2.5 in females); male genitalia ( Figs. 8A–G ): genital capsule with a small blunt tubercle in proximity of the left anterior angle of the genital opening; right paramere ( Fig. 8A ) leaf-like, short, ovoid, apical process pointed; left paramere ( Figs. 8B–C ) with short sensory lobe and elongate, modestly falcate apical process; phallotheca ( Figs. 8D–E ) apically pointed, provided with a long keel removed from apex; vesica ( Figs. 8F–G ) J-shaped, long and gracile, with characteristic lobe-like lateral process near secondary gonopore, secondary gonopore located at the bifurcation of two apical processes, the shorter apically lanceolate and strongly sclerotized, the longer mostly membranous, basally constricted, with dorsal margin coarsely dentate.

Similar to T. arcufera ; see diagnosis of the latter for differential characters.

Discussion. Tuponia montandoni was described based on an unspecified number of females from Plainesci, in Romania. The type series consists of two females, one in good conditions, the second rather damaged, preserved in MGAB, here respectively designated as lectotype and paralectotype. The specimens agree with the very accurate original description, as Reuter’s descriptions always were. The combination of their most relevant characters, already regarded as diagnostic by Reuter (1899), i.e., hemelytra almost uniformly pale ochraceous or white-ochraceous, body length and ocular index equal to 2.5, indicate a very close similarity to Tuponia (Tuponia) macedonica Wagner, 1957 (= T. dentifer Wagner, 1974 ).

Tuponia macedonica was originally described from Macedonia as a subspecies of Tuponia eckerleini and upgraded to a species level by Josifov (1961), who provided excellent illustrations of its male genitalia. Linnavuori (1995) recognized that T. macedonica was a senior synonym of Tuponia (Tuponia) dentifer Wagner, 1974 , described from Cyprus. Type specimens of both T. macedonica and of T. dentifer were examined in ZMUH by the senior author (AC).

Tuponia macedonica is the only species of Tuponia s. str. living in the region in which the color pattern of hemelytra is almost uniform or little contrasted, and the ocular index of females is higher than 2.0. The confirmation of the species identity of T. macedonica and T. montandoni came from an extensive field survey carried out in all suitable areas of Romania, with the aim of sampling all the species of Tuponia living in the country. The large material assembled contained a few series of Tuponia spp. in which females matched exactly the lectotype of T. montandoni and males were extremely small, with a body length of 2.5–2.8 mm. This length was far below the known body size of males of T. macedonica with 3.35–4.10 mm (3.5–4.5 mm in females) according to Josifov (1961) and Wagner (1975) and confirmed by the measurements of specimens from Greece and Cyprus preserved in ACPI. However, the examination of their male genitalia ( Figs. 8A–G ) showed that they agree exactly, down to the smallest detail, with the genitalia of T. macedonica , leading to the conclusion that the latter must be considered a junior synonym of T. montandoni , which we propose here. The remarkable small size of the Romanian population indicates that T. montandoni should be regarded as one more polymorphic species of the genus, characterized by a great variability in body size (see Figs. 7B and 7C ). This had been anticipated by Josifov (1961) who had underlined that different populations from different areas of Bulgaria differed in body size.

Distribution and biology. Tuponia montandoni is a Ponto-Mediterranean element known from Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkey, Cyprus, Iran ( Kerzhner & Josifov 1999; Aukema 2018–2021). The species is known to live on various species of Tamarix ( Josifov 1974; Wagner 1975; Linnavuori 2010); in Slovakia it was collected on Tamarix parviflora together with Tuponia (Chlorotuponia) hippophaes and Tuponia (Tuponia) elegans ( Kment 2004; Kment et al. 2013).

Distribution in Romania is shown in Fig. 9 .

Figures

FIGURE 6. Lectotype of Tuponia (Tuponia) montandoni Reuter, 1899: A habitus in dorsal view, B habitus in lateral view, C labels. (Photo by Ionuț Ștefan Iorgu)

FIGURE 7. Tuponia (Tuponia) montandoni Reuter, 1899: A living specimens from Austria, B habitus in dorsal view of male from Romania, Negrești-Oaș (2,6 mm), ACPI, C habitus in dorsal view of male from Cyprus (3.9 mm), ACPI. Scale bar for B–C: 1.0 mm. (A: photo by W. Rabitsch; B–C: photos by A. Carapezza)

FIGURE 8. Male genitalia of Tuponia (Tuponia) montandoni Reuter, 1899: A right paramere, B left paramere in dorsal view, C left paramere in caudal view, D phallotheca in dorsal view, E phallotheca in ventral view, F vesica in lateral view, G apex of vesica. Scale bar: 0.2 mm for Figs. A–F, 0.1 mm for Fig. G. (Original)

FIGURE 9. Distribution of Tuponia (Tuponia) arcufera Reuter, 1879, T. (T.) elegans (Jakovlev, 1867) and Tuponia (T.) montandoni Reuter, 1899 in Romania.