Phlesirtes Bolivar

Hemp, Claudia & Heller, Klaus-Gerhard, 2017, The genus Phlesirtes Bolivar, 1922 (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Conocephalinae, Conocephalini; Karniellina), a review of the genus with data on its bioacoustics and the description of new species, Zootaxa 4244 (4), pp. 451-477 : 453-457

Phlesirtes Bolivar

Phlesirtes Bolivar, 1922 , Voyage de Baron M. Rothschild en Éthiopie et en Afrique Orientale Anglaise, p. 203 . Type species: Xiphidion merumontanum Sjöstedt, 1909 , Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Schwedischen Zoologischen Expedition nach dem Kilimanjaro, dem Meru und den umgebenden Massaisteppen Deutsch-Ostafrikas 1905–1906, 17. Orthoptera . Locustodea, p. 139.

Diagnosis. The genus Phlesirtes is characterized by having two ventral rows each with five spines on fore and mid tibiae (except for P. hanangensis n. sp. with six spines per row). The fastigium verticis is broad in all species (0.9– 1.1 mm). The last abdominal tergite is medially deeply incised, the margins of this incision forming two appendices which may be short and stout, thorn-like or long and inwardly curved or even twisted at their tips. As in other Karniellina the tegmina are hidden for most of their length under the pronotum. The tips of tegmina are protruding from the posterior margin of the pronotum only some mm in most species. The male cerci have two branches, an outer short and blunt one which is rugose and hairy, and an inner slender one. The outer cercus is often very short and blunt to acute, while the inner cercus may be slender and long and/or twisted or more robust. The ovipositors of the females are only slightly up-curved or straight. Usually the ovipositors are about body length (ovipositor/body length: 1.0; in Melanoscirtes shorter, in Chortoscirtes and Acanthoscirtes mostly longer and up to twice the body length in Fulvoscirtes ).

All known species of Phlesirtes have a pattern of cream, white or green fasciae contrasting with brown or black fasciae on head and pronotum. This pattern starts on the fastigium verticis, continues over dorsum of head to the pronotum. In males the fasciae get fainter mostly after the first third or second third of the pronotum. Males of many species show here a uniform colour of the pronotum, sometimes hazelnut brown, often shades of light brown; the anterior part of the pronotum always has the same colour as the tegmina. In females the fasciae are often not as conspicuous as in males but often continuous over the whole body, only fading in the last third or so of the abdomen.

The pattern of fascia is always very clear on fastigium and dorsum of head and is arranged in all species as follows: central a fine (sometimes very faint) cream, rarely white line which fades very soon on the dorsum of the pronotum. This central line is bordered mostly by an area of broad lateral light to darker brown fascia which merges into sharply outlined black fasciae. This pair of lateral dark fasciae is contrasting often with a cream, white or rarely green pair of fasciae which are very conspicuous in some species (e.g. P. ngongensis n. sp.: shiny white or vivid green, P. merumontanus : shiny white, P. githungiru n. sp.: vivid green) but may be dirty white and not very conspicuous in other species (e.g. P. limuru n. sp., P. chyuluensis n. sp.). This pair of cream, white or green fasciae is bordered again by brown or black fasciae or just merging into the colour of the lateral lobes of the pronotum (often green).

Species may be distinguished by the outer genitalic morphology of males comparing the shape of the posterior incision of the the 10th tergite, the shape of the lateral processes of the 10th tergite and the male cerci. Females are best identified in association with males. Many Phlesirtes species are highly endemic and the location may help to identify species. Exceptions are P. limuru n. sp. and P. githunguri n. sp. occurring in close proximity on the southern lower slopes of the Aberdare Range and P. gladiolus n. sp. and P. ngongensis n. sp. However, latter two species occupy different elevations. P. ngongensis n. sp. is restricted to the Ngong Hills above an altitude of about 1900 m while P. gladiolus n. sp. was found in drier grassland below 1700 m on the Ngong Hills.

The genus Phlesirtes is a typical member of the subtribe Karniellina which contains the African genera Naskreckiella , Karniella , Chortoscirtes , Melanoscirtes , Fulvoscirtes and Acanthoscirtes .

In their general appearance the seven genera are very similar. Males of all species of these taxa have shortened tegmina, and rudimentary hind wings while females have scale-like tegmina and lack hind wings; the stridulatory file is always covered by the posterior margin of the pronotum. In addition, all species have densely hirsute, lobelike expansions on the meso- and metasterna (or collar shaped projections, see Ünal, 2005). A synapomorphic character of the group is the presence of free plantulae of the hind tarsi (for further characters of the Karniellina see Hemp et al., 2010a, b; 2012).

Phlesirtes has a fastigium verticis that is broader than the scapus, a character also found in Fulvoscirtes , Acanthoscirtes , Melanoscirtes , Chortoscirtes , and Karniella . In Naskreckiella the width of the fastigium verticis is smaller. Naskreckiella also differs in the male cerci, which are differentiated into an outer blunt branch and two inner branches of which the more basal one is hook-like (see Ünal, 2005). Naskreckiella females have very stout ovipositors in contrast to all other genera of Karniellina which have slender, almost straight to slightly up-curved ovipositors. In Naskreckiella and Karniella the tegmina are moderately ( Naskreckiella ) to strongly ( Karniella ) inflated while in the other genera of Karniellina Fulvoscirtes , Acanthoscirtes , Chortoscirtes , Phlesirtes and Melanoscirtes the tegmina are never strongly inflated. Similarly the pronotum is raised in the area of the tegmina in Naskreckiella and Karniella while it is weakly so in Chortoscirtes , weakly or not in Melanoscirtes and weakly or not raised in Fulvoscirtes , Acanthoscirtes and Phlesirtes . The shape of the cerci is another diagnostic character facilitating to distinguish the genera of Karniellina (see key to Karniellina genera in Hemp et al., 2012)

Distribution and habitat. All species are inhabitants of open grasslands of the montane to afroalpine zone on East African mountains.