Cryphocricinae MONTANDON 1897
Creators: name: Sites, Robert W.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Naucoridae

description: SUBFAMILY CRYPHOCRICINAE MONTANDON, 1897 A
FIGS 10C, 11C
Type species: Cryphocricos barozzii Signoret, 1850.
Taxonomic history: Montandon (1897a) erected the subfamily (originally misspelled as Cryptocricinae, but later emended) to include Cryphocricos and Ambrysus, as well as the two therein-proposed genera Idiocarus (currently in Cheirochelinae) and Pseudambrysus (currently a junior synonym of Macrocoris in Naucorinae). Usinger (1941, 1947) proposed a more restrictive classification scheme in which Cryphocricinae included only the genus Cryphocricos; he transferred Ambrysus and Melloiella into his newly erected Ambrysinae. Popov (1970) erected the tribe Cataractocorini and placed it and Cryphocricini in Cryphocricinae. Štys & Jansson (1988) placed all three groups (Ambrysini, Cataractocorini, Cryphocricini) together as tribes in the subfamily Cryphocricinae. This subfamily was revised recently (Reynoso-Velasco & Sites, 2021) and now includes only the genus Cryphocricos, agreeing with Usinger (1941, 1947), with Ambrysinae comprising the other groups formerly held within Cryphocricinae. Recently, Sites (2021) presented a review of the genus Cryphocricos along with descriptions of three new species, two of which are included in the analyses here.
Revised taxonomy: This subfamily was recently revised by Reynoso-Velasco & Sites (2021). No further taxonomic action is proposed here.
Diagnosis: Diagnostic features for the subfamily were provided by Reynoso-Velasco & Sites (2021) and include: labium inserted near the anterior margin of the head, labrum well developed, maxillary plates produced anteriorly and reaching the labral apex, anterior margin of the pronotum with a deep concavity, pronotum with crenate lateral margins, prosternum exposed and at the same dorsoventral level as the propleura, alary polymorphism (Sites, 1990), hydrostatic sense organs adjacent to lateral margin on abdominal sterna II–VII, plastral respiration, glabrous abdomen and males with a long, tubular, coiled vesica (Fig. 11c).
Comments: This subfamily is exclusively New World in distribution and is represented by 16 described species, with additional undescribed species represented in these analyses. Although formal descriptions of these species are important, they are of limited value because of the difficulty in finding species-specific diagnostic features. Usinger (1947) used size- and shape-related features to diagnose species from Central and South America. However, in an attempt to determine the specific identity of Cryphocricos in Belize, Sites et al. (2018) were unable to reliably identify their specimens using Usinger’s criteria because intraspecific variation was sufficiently high that some populations contained individuals that keyed to three species.
description: Published as part of Sites, Robert W., 2022, Phylogeny and revised classification of the saucer bugs (Hemiptera: Nepomorpha: Naucoridae), pp. 1245-1286 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 195 on page 1261, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab105, http://zenodo.org/record/6994599