Physopleurella obscura Poppius 1909
Creators: name: Yamada, Kazutaka
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Anthocoridae
Physopleurella
Physopleurella obscura

description: Physopleurella obscura Poppius, 1909
(Figs. 13–15)
Physopleurella obscura Poppius, 1909: 13. Holotype: ♀, New Guinea, Ighibirei (MCSN). Erroneously synonymized with P. armata Poppius, 1909 by Gross (1954: 156); reinstated valid species.
Physopleurella nigrifemora Yamada & Hirowatari, 2007: 448. Holotype: ♂, Malaysia, Selangor (OMU). New subjective synonym.
Physopleurella obscura: Ford (1979: 52, 90) (listed).
Physopleurella armata (in part, misidentifications): Gross (1954: 156–157, 160) (as synonym of P. armata); Cassis & Gross (1995: 32) (as synonym of P. armata); Péricart (1996: 132) (as synonym of P. armata); Yamada & Hirowtari (2007: 441) (as synonym of P. armata); Jung & Lee (2011: 62) (as synonym of P. armata); Jung et al. (2013: 423) (as synonym of P. armata).
Physopleurella nigrifemora: Yamada & Ishikawa (2011: 94–95) (records, distribution, photo).
Type material examined. Physopleurella obscura. Holotype: ♀, ‘N. Guinea \ Ighibirei \ Loria. VII VIII. 90’ [with black frame], ‘Museo Civ. \ Genova’ [red square], ‘ Physopleurella \ obscura n. sp. \ B. Poppius det.’ [handwritten + printed], ‘ HOLOTYPUS \ Physopleurella \ obscura \ B. Poppius’ [light red square, printed + handwritten]; mounted on square card, segments II–IV of left and right antennae, labium, prolegs excepting right coxa and trochanter, mesolegs, right metatibia and metatarsus lacking; deposited in MCSN (Figs. 13–15).
Physopleurella nigrifemora. Holotype: ♂, ‘ MALAYSIA \ Selangor \ Ulu Gombak \ 10. v. 2005 \ K. Yamada leg. ’, ‘ Holotype ♂ \ Physopleurella nigrifemora \ Yamada et Hirowatari, 2007 ’ [pink square]; mounted on triangle card, abdominal segments III–IX removed and preserved on a glass slide (glass slide No. OPU-KY137); deposited in OMU. Paratypes: 1♂ 2♀, Dhu An, Tan Phu, Dong Nai Prov., Vietnam, 29. xii. 2001, T. Ishikawa (OMU); 5♂, same locality as for holotype, 7–8. v. 2005, K. Yamada (OMU).
Remarks. Poppius (1909) pointed out that P. obscura can be distinguished from other congeners by the coloration of the body (in P. obscura, head brown with more darkened between eyes, pronotum blackish brown, hemelytra uniformly yellowish brown, and meso- and metafemora blackish brown). However, Usinger (1946) indicated that slight differences between the Japanese species P. armata and the Papuan species P. obscura, mentioned in the original descriptions, are insignificant, indicating that the body color used by Poppius (1909) for species identification is without diagnostic value. Gross (1954) claimed that color differences between P. obscura and P. armata are mere individual variations and he synonymized P. obscura with P. armata. Subsequent authors followed this synonymy and treated P. obscura as a subjective synonym of P. armata, including Péricart (1996), Yamada & Hirowatari (2007), Jung & Lee (2011), and Jung et al. (2013).
A careful examination on the holotype of P. obscura and an additional material of Physopleurella from Southeast Asia, including specimens of coloration characteristic for P. obscura and for P. armata, concluded that the synonymy proposed by Gross (1954) was erroneous and the two nominal species indeed represent different biological species. Physopleurella obscura can be clearly distinguished from other congeners (including P. armata) by the following characteristics: head brown to blackish brown with more darkened between eyes; antennal segment I entirely darkened; pronotum unicolorously black; scutellum dark with apex paler; hemelytra uniformly yellowish brown (without darkened markings); femora entirely blackish brown; and abdomen overall blackish brown. Therefore P. obscura is reinstated as a valid species.
Yamada & Hirowatari (2007) described P. nigrifemora from Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and subsequently Yamada & Ishikawa (2011) recorded it from Indonesia. All diagnostic characters of P. nigrifemora agree with those of P. obscura, therefore it is here downgraded to a new subjective synonym of P. obscura.
Cassis & Gross (1995: 32) erroneously indicated that P. obscura was synonymized with P. armata by Esaki (1926); in fact this work of Esaki did not contain any proposal or mention of any synonymy.
Current status. Physopleurella obscura Poppius, 1909, valid species.
description: Published as part of Yamada, Kazutaka, 2024, Taxonomic corrections on Oriental Anthocoridae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) described by Bertil Poppius, pp. 127-135 in Zootaxa 5424 (1) on pages 132-133, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5424.1.7, http://zenodo.org/record/10808123