Aradomorpha championi Lent & Wygodzinsky, 1944

Forero, Dimitri & Mejía-Soto, Andrés, 2025, Filling in the gaps for assassin bugs: taxonomic notes and new records of Reduviidae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) from Neotropical countries, Zootaxa 5584 (4), pp. 451-481 : 476

Aradomorpha championi Lent & Wygodzinsky, 1944

Fig. 16A

Distribution: This species is known only from Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) ( Lent & Wygodzinsky 1944; Maldonado 1990). It is a new generic and specific record from Colombia.

Remarks: Aradomorpha Champion, 1899 is a seldom collected reduviid genus. Wygodzinsky (1949b) provided a key to the species of Aradomorpha based on the original descriptions of the species ( Champion 1899; Costa Lima 1940; Lent & Wygodzinsky 1944). We identified the examined specimen as A. championi based on the small eyes not reaching the ventral margin of the head, the banded connexivum, and the similar width of the cells of the membrane of the hemelytron. Nonetheless, the head does not have a ventral, shallow, longitudinal medial excavation on the head, and the forefemur is not slender and the foretibia does have an apical dorsal spiniform process. The foreleg structure is more similar to what was described for A. chinai Costa Lima, 1940 and A. crassipes Champion, 1899 ( Costa Lima 1940; Wygodzinsky 1949b), being the forefemur wider and the foretibia beset with a dorsoapical setiform process. When describing A. championi, Lent & Wygodzinsky (1944) illustrated the fore femora and foretibia in ventral views (see their figures 14 and 15), therefore, we cannot be sure if the tibial process if present or not. Their figure 1 ( Lent & Wygodzinsky 1944) shows the foreleg in lateral view and the femur seems to be as wide as in the other species. Thus, we cannot draw conclusions based on the foreleg structure. Given that the Brazilian specimens of A. championi are all macropterous, with the hemelytra reaching the apex of the abdomen ( Lent & Wygodzinsky 1944), and that the examined specimen is submacropterous ( Fig. 16A ), there is still the possibility that this specimen might represent a different, undescribed, species. Only with more specimens from the Caribbean coast from Colombia we will be able to address variability in all the characters mentioned above.

Examined material: COLOMBIA. Mag [dalena]: 1 ♀, Parque Tayrona, C. Kugler / abanico aluvial [= alluvial fan] Neguanje / IAVH-E 188392 ( IAVH) .

Figures

FIGURE 16. Habitus and detailed images of Aradomorpha championi and Peregrinator biannulipes. A. A. championi, dorsal view; B–D. P. biannulipes; B. dorsal view; C. detail of the head in lateral view; D. lateral view.