Triatoma gerstaeckeri ( Stål, 1859 )

Rengifo-Correa, Laura, Téllez-Rendón, Juan Luis, Esteban, Lyda, Huerta, Herón & Morrone, Juan J., 2021, The Triatoma phyllosoma species group (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Triatominae), vectors of Chagas disease: Diagnoses and a key to the species, Zootaxa 5023 (3), pp. 335-365 : 343

Triatoma gerstaeckeri ( Stål, 1859)

( Fig. 4A, B )

Conorhinus gerstaeckeri Stål, 1859: 111 .

Triatoma gerstaeckeri ; Neiva, 1914: 40; Van Duzee, 1916: 248; Pinto, 1931: 65; Packchanian, 1939: 1548; Usinger, 1944: 56; Eads, 1957: 27; Lent & Wygodzinsky, 1979: 234; Carcavallo et al., 2000: 28; Galvão et al., 2003: 10; Schofield & Galvão, 2009: 92; Monteiro et al., 2018: 284.

Diagnosis. Male body length 23.0–26.0 mm. Female body length 24.0– 28.5 mm. Postocular region with sides subparallel. Pronotum uniformly black, with humeral angles rounded. Clavus black on basal half, brownish on apical portion. Overall color of corium black, with basal, and sometimes subapical, yellow to orange yellow markings, and narrow line along basal half also yellow to orange yellow. Membrane of hemelytra dark brown to black. Fore femora relatively slender, eight to nine times as long as wide. Fore and mid tibiae of males with small spongy fossulae, absent in females. Overall color of connexival segments black, with transverse yellow or orange-yellow markings on posterior third or fourth of each segment. Spiracles lightly colored.

Specimens examined. Mexico. 1 male ( CAIM), Coahuila, Allende, Río Bravo , 06 v 2019 , E. Ortiz. 1 male ( CAIM), Hidalgo, Huejutla , Bernabé Cruz Flores, 2 vi 2010 , A. García Lara. 1 male ( CAIM), Hidalgo, Huejutla , Col. Barrio Arriba, 12 iv 2012 , J.D. Silva. 1 female ( CAIM), Hidalgo, Tepehuacan , San Andrés, 2 v 2012 , n/d. 1 male ( CAIM), Puebla, Jopala , Chicontla, 1 iv 2003 , L. González López. 1 male ( CAIM), San Luis Potosí, Cd. Valles, Cd. Valles, n/d, U. Días Aguilar . 1 male ( CAIM), San Luis Potosí, Rayón , Las Guapas, n/d, C. Castillo . 1 male ( CAIM), San Luis Potosí, Santa Catarina, El Agarroso, 18 iv 1996 , Lorenzo López. 1 female ( CAIM), Tamaulipas, Antiguo Morelos, El Refugio, 17 v 2012 , n/d. 1 female ( CAIM), Tamaulipas, H. Matamoros, Ejido La Tijerita , 03 v 2019 , J. M. Barrera Guevara. 1 male ( CAIM), Tamaulipas, Reynosa , Estación Corrales, 07 v 2019 , JGM.

Distribution. Mexico: Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, and Tamaulipas; and USA: New Mexico and Texas ( Galvão et al. 2003; Bern et al. 2011).

Comments. Triatoma gerstaeckeri ( Stål, 1859) has been putatively related to T. dimidiata ( Lent & Wygodzinsky 1979) and T. lecticularia Schofield & Galvão (2009) . Molecular phylogenetic analyses retrieved a sister relationship between T. gerstaeckeri and T. mexicana ( Bargues et al. 2008; Espinoza et al. 2013; De la Rúa et al. 2014; Rengifo- Correa et al. 2021). This species exhibits variability in color pattern of the corium and connexival segments. Here we present diagnostic characters for one extreme of its variation which is close to the holotype of the species (Figure 13–16 from Rodrigues et al. 2020), the dark phenotype of T. gerstaeckeri ( Fig. 4A ). This phenotype seems common in the northernmost area of the distribution of T. gerstaeckeri . The other extreme of color pattern variation, the light phenotype ( Fig. 4B ), seems common in its southernmost area of distribution. This light phenotype resembles the color pattern of T. dimidiata and T. mexicana . We believe that variability of the color pattern in T. gerstaeckeri and T. mexicana is inherited from their most recent common ancestor. The dark phenotype of T. gerstaeckeri superficially resembles T. indictiva Neiva, 1912 , while the light phenotype superficially resembles T. dimidiata or even T. huehuetenanguensis . In practice, several misidentifications came from confusion of these species, but differences between these species can be retrieved with our key. To date, there is no information on hybrids of T. gerstaeckeri .

Figures

FIGURE 4. Triatoma spp. A, B, T. gerstaeckeri; C, T. gomeznunezi; D, T. hegneri; E, F, T. indictiva (4C and D courtesy of C. Dale, 4E, F courtesy of E. Barrera-Vargas).