AMPHIACUSTINA HUBBELL, 1938

Heads, Sam W., 2010, The first fossil spider cricket (Orthoptera: Gryllidae: Phalangopsinae): 20 million years of troglobiomorphosis or exaptation in the dark?, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 158 (1), pp. 56-65 : 58

SUBTRIBE AMPHIACUSTINA HUBBELL, 1938 STAT. NOV.

Amphiacustae Hubbell, 1938: 206.

Type genus: Amphiacusta Saussure, 1874 .

Remarks: The priority of family-group names based on the type genus Amphiacusta dates from Amphiacustae Hubbell, 1938. This name has subsequently been used to refer to a group of genera comprising Amphiacusta , Arachnopsita , Cantrallia , Leptopedetes , Longuripes , Mayagryllus , Nemoricantor , Noctivox , and Prolonguripes ( Desutter-Grandcolas, 1993, 1999). The monophyly of this group is well supported by the apical migration of sclerites in the epiphallic arms (termed the ‘C-sclerites’ by Desutter-Grandcolas, 1993) and the endophallic apodeme without a mediodorsal crest. The group includes some 84 species in the aforementioned genera, distributed throughout Central America and the West Indies.

Hubbell (1938) formed the name Amphiacustae using his standard suffix for family-group names beneath the rank of subfamily and although the group has been intensively studied since then ( Desutter-Grandcolas, 1993, 1997, 1999; Desutter- Grandcolas & Otte, 1997), it has never been assigned a rank. Thus, Hubbell’s (1938) original spelling of the name (using the suffix -ae) has never been questioned. The suffixes of family-group names are regulated by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN) at the ranks of superfamily, family, subfamily, tribe, and subtribe ( ICZN, 1999: article 29.2). The suffixes of names at other ranks within the family group are not formally regulated, but do have widely accepted standard suffixes (e.g. -oidae for an epifamily, -iti for a supertribe, -ita for an infratribe, etc.). The suffixes of rankless taxa are likewise unregulated by the ICZN, and their use has become increasingly desirable in recent years because of the widespread use of cladistic methodology and the need to name important nodes within phylogenies; particularly in cases where the assignment of a specific rank would be superfluous. Nevertheless, the use of the name Amphiacustae as a rankless taxon retaining its original suffix is somewhat problematic because of the similarity of the name with that of the type genus. This has the potential to cause confusion, and so the group is here assigned the rank of subtribe and the suffix is emended to ‘-ina’, in accordance with ICZN regulations.