Lobosceliana femoralis ( Walker, 1870 )

Massa, Bruno, 2020, Remarks on some interesting African Pamphagidae and Acrididae (Insecta Orthoptera: Acridoidea), Zootaxa 4751 (1), pp. 29-54 : 44-45

Lobosceliana femoralis ( Walker, 1870)

Material examined: 20 specimens. Tanzania, Kilosa II.1926, N.C.E. Miller (1♂, 1♀: labeled Lamarckiana ki-

losana n. sp., N.C.E. Miller); Tanzania, Dodoma III.1926, N.C.E. Miller (1♀); Tanzania, Shinyanga 21.X.1926, N.C.E. Miller (1♀); Tanzania, Uluguru 1918, A.G. Wilkins (1♂, 2♀); Tanzania, Singida VI .1928, S.F. Bush (1♂); Tanzania 22.XII.1929, I.1930, B.F. Bush (2♀); Tanzania, Itumba, Usagara 1905, A.N. Wood (1♀) ( MZUR); Tanza- nia, Barikiwa (1♀); Tanzania, Laudsch. Iramba , vorwiegend westl. Teil, E. Obst 14-20.IX.1911 (1♂, 3♀); Tanzania, Mikindani 25. V .1899 (2♂) ( ZMUH).

Remarks. Miller (1929) described Lamarckiana kilosana from Kilosa ( Tanzania), which Dirsh (1958) synonymized with Lobosceliana brevicornis (Bolívar, 1915) . Among the material preserved at MZUR there are one male and one female identified personally by Miller as Lamarckiana kilosana n. sp. Doubtless, the two specimens are syntypes. The male from Kilosa has antennae with wide basal and medial segments, the female from Kilosa has femora with the lower margin well expanded. In the male of L. femoralis basal and medial parts of the antennae are comparatively wide, while in L. brevicornis they are comparatively narrow. In the female of L. femoralis the lower margin of the hind femur is strongly expanded, excurved and serrated in the subapical part only, while in L. brevicornis it is little expanded, less excurved and serrated along the whole length ( Dirsh 1958). Also the aedeagus sclerites of Kilosa specimens match those of L. femoralis depicted by Dirsh (1958). It is possible that the typical series consisted of both L. brevicornis and L. femoralis , but the Figs. 45-49 by Miller (1929) seem to match better the characters of L. femoralis than those of L. brevicornis . In addition, there are two females from Dodoma and Shinyanga, collected also by Miller in the same period when he put together the Acridoidea published in 1929; however, they were not included in his paper. It is hard to understand how they are part of the Salfi’s collection in MZUR.

According to Dirsh (1958) and Rowell et al. (2015) L. femoralis is distributed in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.