Zvenella Gorochov

Libin, Ma & Yalin, Zhang, 2012, The crickets of genus Zvenella Gorochov, 1988 (Gryllidae: Podoscirtinae) from China, Zootaxa 3597, pp. 57-67 : 58-59

Genus Zvenella Gorochov

Zvenella Gorochov 1988: 12, 2002: 336 ; Yin & Liu 1995: 108; Ingrisch 1997: 48, 49

Type species: Madasumma yunnana Gorochov

Distribution: China, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Body size small or medium, always narrow. Head dorsum widened and faintly rounded, cheeks wide and flat, and face narrowed, convex and inclined. Eyes wide and rounded at top, narrow and sharp at bottom, and with a thin smooth area along the eye’s top margin. Antennal scape shaped as shield, large and wide, and equal to or slightly wider than rostrum. Frontoclypeal sulcus upwardly convex and above it, an angular area of face shaped as flat section. The distal section of maxillary palpus much widened and fan-shaped. The apical section of labial palp shaped as triangle or drum hammer. Pronotal anterior margin straight and posterior margin sinuate (convex at middle). Pronotum rounded, bending between disc and lateral lobes. The anterior bottom corner higher and posterior corners lower. Disc always dark and patterned by light color, and lateral lobes always lighter and ornamented with some dark spots. Metanotal gland developed with keels dividing it into two parts, inner and outer. Forewings long, lateral margins straight and contracted at the apical field. Forewings always brown, before the stridulatory vein, the top lateral corner and apical of mirror ornamented with yellow or light yellow spots.

Sometimes the base of forewings ornamented with light color and at the anterior part between dorsal and lateral areas ornamented with spot or a band colored lightly. Hind wings short, dark brown. Wings always covered with pubescence. Anterior tibiae somewhat swollen, armed with slit-like inner and opened oval tympana. Hind tibiae dorsum with short spines in whole with five paired spurs midway on apical part and three paired apical spurs (the inner apical spurs very short and outer ones long). The inner margin of claw without any teeth. Anal plate flattened. Cercus longed, rough and covered with sparse hairs.

The Zvenella species are divided into three groups mainly by their genitalia ( Gorochov, 2002). Most of them belong to the Yunnana Group; in this group, the epiphallus of the species is always armed with denticulate lower apical lobes, one large paired upper process and rather short hind lateral lobes. The Albomaculata Group is characterized by their epiphallus with non-denticulate lower apical lobes, two paired large upper processes, and long narrow hind lateral lobes. The Parcevenosa Group also is armed with a pair of processes as in Yunnana Group, but their lower apical lobes are non-denticulate or slightly denticulate and their hind lateral lobes are curved. The ovipositor is somewhat curved, smooth and lightly colored in large part (along the lateral with a dark line) but dark, rough and punctured at the apical part which is also armed with obtuse teeth.

All of the recorded Chinese species and the new species belong to the Yunnana Group. Their distribution data is marked in Map I.