Morgenia rubricornis Sjöstedt, 1913

Massa, Bruno, 2022, On some interesting Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae and Acrididae from tropical Africa, Zootaxa 5178 (2), pp. 152-160 : 156

Morgenia rubricornis Sjöstedt, 1913 senior synonym

Type locality: Africa , Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mukimbungu; depository: NHRS, Stockholm .

The careful examination of the holotype of Mangomaloba latipennis ( Figs. 2a, 2b, 2c ) revealed in the apical ventral side of mid tibiae the presence of a curved spur (L. Desutter, pers. comm.), typical in the genus Morgenia Karsch, 1890 ; the general habitus ( Figs. 2a, 2b ) and the shape of the spur ( Fig. 2c ) consent to establish that it belongs to Morgenia rubricornis . Thus, it is being proposed that Mangomaloba latipennis Chopard, 1954 is considered a junior synonym of Morgenia rubricornis Sjöstedt, 1913 . Additionally, Mangomaloba latipennis was erroneously reported by Massa (2017, 2018), but it really is Morgenia plurimaculata Massa et Moulin, 2018 .

Thus, presently three species of Mangomaloba are known from tropical Africa; all these species have spaced cross-veins in the costal area of tegmina.

During the collecting activity by ANHRT in Sierra Leone, one specimen with characters similar to those of Mangomaloba was collected in a light trap, with the difference that the costal area of tegmina has a net of small cells. Because in Morgenia this character varies depending on the species ( Massa et al. 2018), this specimen was tentatively considered to belong to Mangomaloba .

Figures

FIGURE 2. a) Lateral view of the holotype of Mangomaloba latipennis; b) the same, dorsal view of the stridulatory area; c) the same, spur on the mid tibiae (cf. arrow), typical character of the genus Morgenia (photos by L. Desutter-Grandcolas). The habitus and morphological characters allow to synonymize Mangomaloba latipennis with Morgenia rubricornis.