Chlamydatus Curtis, 1833

Konstantinov, Fedor V., Luo, Zhaohui & Vinokurov, Nikolay N., 2013, Two new species, new synonymies, and new records of Plant bugs (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Miridae) from Northwestern China, Zootaxa 3666 (2), pp. 203-220 : 216

Chlamydatus Curtis, 1833

Li & Liu (2006) provided the first detailed treatment of the genus from China and described two new species, namely C. laminatus and C. sichuanensis , both known from a series sampled at the same collection event from Xiaojin County in Sichuan Province. According to the original description, C. laminatus differs from C. pullus (Reuter, 1870) in having the lobelike dorsal projection of the phallotheca and pale femora. Although we have not been able to study the holotype of C. laminatus , the excellent illustrations provided by Li & Liu (2006) unequivocally reveal its conspecificity with C. eurotiae Kerzhner, 1962 . The authors were apparently unaware of the paper by Kerzhner (1962) with the description of C. eurotiae and have not mentioned this species in the respective diagnoses. Chlamydatus eurotiae is well distinguished from congeners in having the phallotheca of the same peculiar shape as depicted in original description of C. laminatus . No distinctions were found in the vesica structure, parameres, color pattern, sizes, and body proportions. The former species is widely distributed in Central Asia, known from Mongolia and has been sampled by one of the authors in Northwestern China (see below).

The second species described by Li & Liu (2006), viz. C. sichuanensis is indistinguishable from C. pullus (Reuter, 1870) in the structure of the male genitalia and differs from the latter species in having yellowish ground color of the fore and middle femur. Chlamydatus pullus is one of the most widespread Holarctic phyline species and examination of a vast material from the collection of Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, revealed a wide variability in the coloration of legs and body size. The ground color of all femora varies from uniformly dark to dirty yellow, with a few dark spots and darkened bases even within a series collected at one time. The same is true for the above-mentioned C. eurotriae and C. pulicarius (Fallén, 1807) in the Palearctic fauna, and Schuh and Schwartz (2005) revealed a similar pattern of variability in North American C. pullus and C. pulicarius (see Plate 3 and relevant discussion in Schuh & Schwartz 2005). We have examined a previously nondissected male paratype of C. sichuanensis and found that the specimen clearly belongs to C. laminatus and was erroneously determined by Li and Liu because of its pale colored femora. Evidently it is impossible to separate any isolated group on the grounds of femora coloration and dissection of the male genitalia is essential for correct determination of a species. On the ground of the foregoing discussion we propose the following synonymies: Chlamydatus laminatus Li & Liu, 2006 = Chlamydatus eurotiae Kerzhner, 1962 , new synonymy and Chlamydatus sichuanensis Li & Liu, 2006 = Chlamydatus pullus (Reuter, 1870) , new synonymy.