Dendroblatta Rehn, 1916

Evangelista, Dominic A., Sylvain, Erdine, Mendoza, Ciara Mae & Guzman, Kimberly, 2016, New and enigmatic cockroaches (Dictyoptera: Blattodea) of Guyana, Journal of Natural History 50, pp. 2249-2276 : 2265-2266

Genus Dendroblatta Rehn, 1916

History

Dendroblatta was originally described by Rehn (1916). Since its description, the genus has grown to include 19 species (including the one herein described) that have each slightly widened the morphological scope of the genus. The original description emphasized the following as the defining characters: intercalated triangle of wings small, elongate and narrow; dorsal tergal gland on 7th tergite; ventral surface hirsute ( Rehn 1916). However, Rehn later revised this to say that the dorsal tergal gland was not common to all species of the genus and should therefore not be considered a diagnostic feature ( Rehn 1932). Lopes et al. (2014) added Dendroblatta iani (Rocha E Silva Albuquerquee 1964) to the genus (originally described as Xestoblatta iani ). The inclusion of this species diversifies the forms of spination of the anteroventral margin of the fore leg femur found in Dendroblatta . D. iani is the only member of the genus with a series of moderately sized spines preceding the apical spines, rather than the typical spination (moderately size spines basally, a dense row of small spines, and two larger apical spines). D. iani should be considered atypical of the genus in this respect.

Thus far, all taxonomic work on this genus has failed to provide a set of strong characters delimiting it. In fact, further work may find that this genus is not monophyletic. From what work has been done thus far, we find that the following characteristics are typical of the genus, but may be different among atypical species: 3 – 5 protrusions of the subgenital plate, usually one medial protrusion being more densely sclerotized; pronotum typically with some black coloration in the central region; spination of the fore leg femur having 3 – 7 moderately large spines basally, followed by 19 – 31 minute spines, 1 large preapical and 1 large apical spine; dorsal tergal gland either absent, or represented by a simple patch of hairs on terga 7; supra-anal plate symmetrical, truncate, slightly bilobed in some species and simple in other species; body length between 8 and 20 mm.