Telamona excelsa Fairmaire, new combination
Creators: name: Wallace, Matthew S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2015
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Membracidae
Telamona
Telamona excelsa

description: Telamona excelsa (Fairmaire), new combination
(Figs. 1 C, D)
Synonymy.
Thelia excelsa Fairmaire 1846: 310. Holotype: NHMW.
Telamona excelsa (Fairmaire 1846): Stål 1864: 71.
Helonica excelsa (Fairmaire 1846): Ball 1931: 16.
Telamona unicolor Fitch 1851: 50; new synonymy. Lectotype: NYSM (Funkhouser 1915; Barnes 1988). Telamona fasciata Fitch 1851: 50; new synonymy. Lectotype: NYSM (Funkhouser 1915; Barnes 1988).
Diagnosis. The following diagnosis is based on the descriptions by Fairmaire (1846) and Fowler (1896c), a photograph of Fairmaire’s holotype (Fig. 1 C), and the author’s observations. Pronotal color sexually dimorphic; female uniform yellow-green; male yellow-brown with lateral prominent dark stripes on posterior edge of pronotal projection, metopidium dark brown. Pronotal projection quadrate and highly elevated from lateral view, smoothly textured, dorsal margin convex, anterior overhanging lobe absent; pronotal dorsal carina darkened, white stripe absent.
Distribution. Mexico (Fairmaire 1846). Central and Eastern, Southwestern United States; Central and Eastern Provinces, Canada (Deitz and Wallace 2012).
Notes. Funkhouser (1915) and Barnes (1988) discussed the type status of Fitch’s membracid species at NYSM. Funkhouser provided a list of the specimens “as a designation of the type specimens.” Barnes, p. 87, referred to the NYSM specimens as follows, “W.D. Funkhouser designated lectotypes for the Membracidae described in the Homoptera catalog.” The present author agrees with the interpretations of Funkhouser and Barnes based on Article 74.1 and Recommendation 73F of the ICZN (1999); Fitch’s (1851) original descriptions were sometimes based on more than one specimen (e.g. Telamona querci). The “female” lectotype of Telamona fasciata Fitch (NYSM) bears labels: “ Lectotype / Telamona fasciata Fitch / Funkhouser 1915; Barnes 1988 ” (supplied by the present author) and “685; Female; Type.” Fitch apparently made an error in determining the sex of this specimen; it matches his pronotal description (1851), but is a male. The female lectotype of Telamona unicolor Fitch (NYSM) bears labels “ Lectotype / Telamona unicolor Fitch / Funkhouser 1915; Barnes 1988 ” (supplied by the present author) and “684; Female; Type.” Fitch’s personal notes indicate that specimens of T. fasciata and T. unicolor specimens at the USNM are not part of the original type series (Barnes 1988).
Both the holotype of Telamona excelsa (Fairmaire 1846) (Fig. 1 C) (see explanation below) and the lectotype of Telamona unicolor Fitch 1851 (Fig. 1 D) match the description above, and thus are conspecific. The abnormality in the anterior portion of the pronotum on the lectotype of T. unicolor is likely due to the specimen being collected and damaged during a teneral state. Further, Telamona fasciata Fitch 1851, the type species of Telamona Fitch, is a junior synonym of T. unicolor. Thus, T. unicolor and T. fasciata are both junior synonyms of Telamona excelsa. Although Article 70.3 of the ICZN (1999) allows a genus to be maintained if the type species was misidentified, the treehopper genus Helonica Ball 1931 is here considered a junior synonym of Telamona Fitch 1851 because their type species are identical, thus resulting in the new combination, T. excelsa (reasoning for this decision is made in the notes section of Telamona projecta, below).
Although the type of T. excelsa is from Mexico (see below) and the type of T. unicolor is from New York (USA), the range of the host plant genus (Carya) extends from Canada into Central America (Manning 1962; USDA 2015). This host plant information helps confirm the synonymy.
A female specimen in NHMW (Fig. 1 C) is assumed to be the holotype of Thelia excelsa Fairmaire (now Telamona excelsa (Fairmaire)) based on the ICZN (1999), and additional evidence presented below. The labels of the holotype read: “ Mexico, Coll. Signoret.; excelsa, det. Signoret; excelsa, det. Fowler.” No information on type specimens was provided by Fairmaire’s (1846) original description or Fowler’s (1896c) subsequent description and accompanying illustration of Thelia excelsa (as Telamona excelsa). Nevertheless, Ball (1931: 16), in his description of T. excelsa, speculated that the specimen Fowler examined and illustrated was the type: “Fowler in the Biologia, Table 9, Fig. 4 and 4a, figures the type indicating a rather large, broad-crested female which he placed in Telamona.” It is reasonable to assume Fairmaire and Fowler based their descriptions on a single specimen, the holotype. Article 73.1.2 of the ICZN (1999) states that a holotype can be fixed by monotypy if a taxon is implied to be based on a single specimen, and that works outside the original publication can be used to help identify the specimen in question (see also, Article 72.4.1.1; ICZN 1999).
The type of T. excelsa (Fig. 1 C) resembles Fowler’s illustration of Thelia excelsa in color and overall pronotal shape although the illustration shows the pronotum produced more anteriorly. Nevertheless, Fowler (1894b: p. 2) in his introduction to the Membracidae, gives thanks to researchers who sent “typical specimens” from European museums, including NHMW and later, (Fowler 1896c, p. 144), listed “ Hab. MEXICO (coll. Signoret 1 & Sichel, in Mus. Vind. Caes.)” under the synonymy of Telamona excelsa, where “Mus. Vind. Caes.” is an abbreviation for NHMW. This information is consistent with the current labels attached to the holotype (see above). Finally, Sehnal (2000) mentioned that Signoret’s Collection, now housed in NHMW, included numerous types of species described by early French entomologists. Thus, it likely contained the Fairmaire type of Thelia excelsa. Other Fairmaire treehopper types, including Membracis lefebvrei Fairmaire (Fowler 1894b) and Tomogonia vittatipennis (Fowler 1895b), originally part of the Signoret Collection, are also now housed at NHMW.
description: Published as part of Wallace, Matthew S., 2015, Taxonomic changes in the treehopper genera Helonica Ball, Te la mo na Fitch, and Palonica Ball (Hemiptera: Membracidae: Smiliinae: Telamonini), pp. 251-258 in Zootaxa 4007 (2) on pages 252-254, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4007.2.7, http://zenodo.org/record/242593