Polytoxus Spinola 1850
Creators: name: Castro-Huertas, Valentina
name: Melo, María Cecilia
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Reduviidae
Polytoxus

description: Polytoxus Spinola, 1850
Type species: Acanthothorax sanguineus Costa, 1842. By monotypy, 75 species included.
Polytoxus has been characterized by an unarmed clypeus; the head, labium, profemur and protibia ventrally with tufts of stout setae (but never spiniform setae); anterior pronotal lobe unarmed; humeral angles, meso- and metanotum spined; and forewing with a basal cell (Rédei and Tsai 2010). Currently, it is composed of 75 species, being the most diverse genus within Saicini. Unfortunately it was not possible to include the type species in our data matrix because of the lack of specimens. Our results show that Polytoxus may be paraphyletic, with P. annulipes and P. fuscovittatus more closely related to Tolyxopus and Saica than to the other Polytoxus species. Interestingly, these results are consistent with Standring et al. (2023), where an unidentified species of Polytoxus from India forms a clade with Tolyxopus and are sister-group of Saica + other Polytoxus species. We only had the opportunity to examine 12 species of this genus, mainly from the Oriental Region; we expect that expanding the sampling with more species and from all the known distributional range of the genus would help to clarify the situation of this genus.
Examined material: Polytoxus annulipes Miyamoto and Lee, 1966: JAPAN: one male, Komi, Iriomote Is., The Ryukyus, 4.vi.2003, T. Ishikawa. leg (TUA); one female, Funaura, Iriomote-jima Is., The Ryukyus, 11.×.2004, T. Ishikawa (TUA). Polytoxus rufinermis ardens Ishikawa and Yano, 2002: one male, one female, paratypes, JAPAN: the Ryuktys Okinawa-honto Is., Yona, Yona-ensyurin, 5.xi.1999, Tadashi Ishikawa (TUA). Polytoxus armillatus Ishikawa, 1998: one male, one female, paratypes, JAPAN: Chiba Perf. Sakura city, Inba-numa, 9.xi.1997, Koji Toyoda (TUA). Polytoxus esakii Ishikawa and Yano, 1999: one male, one female, paratypes, TAIWAN: Shao-Tiengchi, Lan-Yu Is., 24.iii.1998, M. Sakai leg (TUA). Polytoxus eumorphus Miller, 1941: JAPAN: one male, Komi, Iriomotejima Is., The Ryukyus, 2.ii.2002, T. Ishikawa leg (TUA); one female, Funaura, Iriomote-jima Is., The Ryukyus, 11.×.2004, T. Ishikawa (TUA). Polytoxus flammatus Ishikawa and Yano, 2002: JAPAN: one male, Paratype, The Ryukyus, Iriomote-jima Is., Urauchi, 30.v.1999, Hiroki Mizushima (TUA); one female, The Ryukyus, Iriomote-jima Is., Urauchi, 30.v.1999, T. Ishikawa (TUA). Polytoxus fuscovittatus (Stål, 1860): JAPAN: one male, Sumiyoshi, Iriomote Is., the Ryukyus, 18.v.2001, T. Tsuru leg (TUA); one female, Otomi, Iriomote Is., the Ryukyus, 24.v.2003, LT., T. Tsuru leg (TUA). Polytoxus hiemalis Ishikawa and Okajima, 2003: one female, Paratype, VIETNAM: Near Tuyen Larn Lake, Ward 3, Da Lat, Lam Dong, 22.xii.2001, T. Ishikawa leg (TUA). Polytoxus minimus China, 1940: JAPAN: one male, Ozato, Ishigaki-jima Is., The Ryûkyûs, 4-5.v.2004, T. Ishikawa (TUA); one female, The Ryukyus, Yonaguni-jima Is., Tarumai, 19.v.2000, Tadashi Ishikawa (TUA). Polytoxus ruber Yano, 1998: one male, one female, JAPAN: Maezato, Ishigaki Is., The Ryukyus, 10.vi.2003, T. Ishikawa leg (TUA). Polytoxus takahashii Yano, 1998: JAPAN: one male, Maezato, Ishigaki Is., The Ryukyus, 10.vi.2003, T. Ishikawa leg (TUA); one female, Shiramizu, Ishigakijima Is., The Ryukyus, 7.iii.2002, T. Ishikawa leg (TUA). Polytoxus vagans Miller, 1940: JAPAN: one male, Ohara, Iriomote-jima Is., The Loochoos, 21.vi.1966, S. Tachikawa leg. / Light trap (TUA); one female, The Ryukyus, Iriomote-jima Is., Urauchi, 22.vi.1998, Chuh Ishikawa (TUA).
description: Published as part of Castro-Huertas, Valentina & Melo, María Cecilia, 2025, Reassessment of the Saicini phylogeny and evolution of hairy attachment structures on tarsi (Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Emesinae), pp. 1-20 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 203 (1) on page 11, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae171, http://zenodo.org/record/14826033