Thyridorhoptrum baileyi Pitkin, 1977

Felix, Rob P. W. H. & Massa, Bruno, 2016, Orthoptera (Insecta: Tettigonioidea, Pyrgomorphoidea, Acridoidea) of Kafa Biosphere Reserve, Bale Mountains National Park and other areas of conservation interest in Ethiopia, Zootaxa 4189 (1), pp. 1-59 : 11-12

Thyridorhoptrum baileyi Pitkin, 1977

http://lsid.speciesfile.org/urn:lsid: Orthoptera .speciesfile.org:TaxonName:17565 Figure 9

Material examined. ETHIOPIA: SNNPR, Bench Maji, Dembi Forest (1260 m), 14.IV.2015, R.P.W.H. Felix (1Ƌ, RFPC).

Distribution. This species occurs in West and Central Africa from Sierra Leone to Uganda and southwards to southern Zaire ( Pitkin 1977). Newly recorded for Ethiopia.

Habitat. The habitat preference is tropical rain forest and its edges. In Uganda the species is found in open forests, on shrubs along paths or roads, never in deep forest ( Pitkin 1977). This biotope corresponds with our collection site at Dembi Forest: lush green understory shrub in a wet forest edge near a stream ( Figure 2 c).

Remarks. There are two different forms, which may represent separate species ( Pitkin 1977): one with a large mirror and one with a small mirror. Our specimen belongs to the large mirror form.

T. baileyi is characterized by a swollen stridulatory ridge, with a differentiated stridulatory file, where the teeth are minute and densely placed at one end, and large and well-spaced in the center of the row (like Figure 6 , p. 648, in Pitkin 1977). A second species of the genus, T. senegalense (Krauss 1877) , is reported from Ethiopia by Jago (1977), from Arba Minch (Arba Minoh?), in Omo Valley, SNNPR. In T. senegalense the ridge is not swollen and the teeth are uniformly shaped and distributed.

Figures

FIGURE 2. Habitats at collecting sites. a: Sheko Forest (1570 m); b: Makira Forest (1615 m); c: Dembi Forest (1260 m); d: Bebeka Plantation (1370 m).

FIGURE 6. Stridulatory file and mirror of Pseudorhynchus lanceolatus (Dembi Forest), Anoedopoda lamellata (Bale Mountain Lodge) and Ruspolia differens (Dembi Forest, Ethiopia).

FIGURE 9. Thyridorhoptrum baileyi, Dembi Forest (1260 m), Ethiopia (same specimen). Scale bar represents 1 cm.