Turanogryllus lateralis ( Fieber, 1853 )

Ma, Libin, Zheng, Yanna & Qiao, Min, 2021, Revision of Chinese crickets of the tribe Modicogryllini Otte & Alexander, 1983 with notes on relevant taxa (Orthoptera: Gryllidae; Gryllinae), Zootaxa 4990 (2), pp. 227-252 : 246-247

Turanogryllus lateralis ( Fieber, 1853)

( Figs. 2E ; 15B ; 16A–C )

Gryllus lateralis Fieber 1853: 235

Gryllodes lateralis, Saussure, 1877: 390

Turanogryllus lateralis, Bey-Bienko, 1956: 221 ; Randell 1964: 1571; Chopard, 1967: 34; Yin & Liu 1995: 64, illustr. 193, 194, misidentification

Gryllodes terrestris Saussure, 1877: 392 ; synonymized by Gorochov, 1986: 12

Gryllopsis aelleni (= Turanogryllus aelleni ) Chopard, 1954: 47, syn. nov.

Holotype information. Type locality: Russia south. Deposited at the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria (not examined).

Measurements. Male (n=3): BL 10.90±0.33, HL 1.40±0.21, HW 2.54±0.10, PL 1.98±0.09, PW 3.39±0.14, FWL 7.43±0.26, FWW 3.40±0.23, MTL 2.43±0.15, HFL 7.06±0.30

Description. Male. Body fusiform and smaller than medium sized Gryllinae species. Head rounded with occiput round and convex; vertex to clypeus shaped as hemisphere, in lateral view, plump and round. Labral apical margin arched. Epistomal suture obviously upward convex and acute angular-like. Frons broad and nearly four times wider than antennal scape. Antennal scape transverse and somewhat rounded. Lateral ocelli large and round, and median ocellus small and half-moon like. Eyes large and elongate with straight posterior margin. Pronotum trapezoid in dorsal view and slightly wider than length. Anterior margin of pronotum broadly concave, posteriorly straight and laterally arched. Lateral lobes of pronotum plump and somewhat flatten. Elytra arched laterally. Base field short and about half length of pronotum. Oblique vein three. Diagonal vein sinuated. Mirror transverse and oval-like; dividing vein separate mirror equally. Apical field long and conspicuously longer than mirror. Cercus slightly long and almost equal to hind tibia. Outer tympana large and long ovoid; inner tympana small and oval-like. Hind tibia slightly shorter than femur. Hind tibia armed with five or six pairs of subapical spurs, and the basal pair sometimes absent, and the inner conspicuously thicker and larger than the outer ones. Subapical spur thicker proximally, tapering and curved inward apically.

Coloration. Body colored yellowish-brown and ornamented with much brown patterns on head and pronotum. Vertex and occiput brown, ornamented with six thin stripes colored light. Frons ornamented with a half round pattern colored brown. Eyes dark brown. Pronotum ornamented with a pair of longitudinal brown stripes medially; the lateral area of disc colored yellowish-brown and distributed several brown spots; and brown and wide stripes above lateral lobes. Hind femur ornamented with brown stripes outward and laterally.

Genitalia. Epiphallus without median lobe, lateral lobes thick and short but possessing apexes finger-like, thin and long. Gap between epiphallic lateral lobes deeply concave. Ectoparamere complicated and comprised of several sheet or hoot like processes, of which, the largest process broad, laterally depressed and armed with arched apical and bottom margin and an angular dorsal convex; in lateral view, the proximal part possessing a short process outside and a sheet-like inner process which upward curved.

Female unknow.

Materials examined. 3 males, Xinjiang, Jijihu , viii-10–15-2014, Ma, Libin coll. ( SNNU) ; 14 males and 5 females, Xinjiang, Shihezi, Sanfenchang, viii-26, Xie, Lingde coll. ( SNNU) .

Remarks. Turanogryllus lateralis ( Fieber, 1853) was firstly recorded from southern Russia but without any of illustration, which caused some problem for subsequent research. For example, Randell (1964) studied Turanogryllus eous Bey-Bienko, 1956 from region of Hebei and adjacent places (the information of examined material is ‘Chao Hant, Chili, China, Aug. 29, 1921, A.P. Jacot’) and identified it as T. lateralis . In addition, Randell used features of genitalia of T. eous to substitute for T. lateralis , causing confusion in studies of related species in East Asia. Yin and Liu (1995) recorded a distribution of T. lateralis in Xinjiang, China, but the genitalia of specimen they illustrated in their book ( Yin & Liu, 1995: 142, illustr. 193, 194) is of the species of T. eous but not of T lateralis . In addition, Chopard recorded Turanogryllus aelleni (Chopard, 1954) from Iran and there are several photos of holotype on Orthoptera Species File online (OSF) (Cigliano, et al., 2021). We compared it with specimens at hand and identified that they should be considered as the same species, and we propose that T. aelleni is junior synonym of T. lateralis . In fact, although T. lateralis wide spreads of Old World, we almost found there is less illustration for it and we describe and illustrate this species in detail here.

Figures

FIGURE 2. Heads of Modicogryllini and regarding species. A. S. semiobscurus; B. S. siamensis; C. M. (P.) consobrinus; D. T. rufoniger; E. T. lateralis; F. T. eous.

FIGURE 15. Bodies of T. eous and T. laterali. A. T. eous; B. T. laterali. Scale bar: 10mm.

FIGURE 16. Genitalia of T. laterali. A. dorsal view; B. lateral view; C. ventral view.