Monobazus fanjingshanensis VIRAKTAMATH & WEBB & YESHWANTH 2025, comb. nov.
Creators: name: VIRAKTAMATH, C. A.
name: WEBB, M. D.
name: YESHWANTH, H. M.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Cicadellidae
Monobazus
Monobazus fanjingshanensis

description: Monobazus fanjingshanensis (Li) comb. nov.
Figs 36A–I
Phlogothamnus fanjingshanensis Li, in Li et al. 2011, 181, figs 5–175: 1–7, not an available name.
Phlogotettix fanjingshanensis Li in Dmitriev et al. 2024: 277.
Diagnosis. Pale ochraceous species with male pygofer with a ventrally curved hook-like process bordering posterior margin. Aedeagus resembling that of M. himalayensis but the ventral process of the aedeagal shaft is not forked apically and the apophysis of the style has a with bluntly rounded apex compared to a pointed apex in M. himalayensis.
Description. Pale ochraceous. Crown with pale orange transverse band. Pronotum with pale brown spots on anterior half, mesonotum with basal triangles pale brown. Forewings hyaline with apices of claval veins and veins R 1 and R 2+3 pale brown.
Head wider than pronotum. Crown medially longer than next to eyes, 0.8× as long medially as inter ocular distance. Pronotum 1.3× as long as crown and twice as wide as long medially. Mesonotum slightly shorter than pronotum.
Male genitalia. Pygofer gradually narrowed posteriorly, posterior margin rounded, with ventral process arising basoventrally, but separated from inner wall of pygofer only distally and curved ventrally. Subgenital plates elongate, triangular, 4.1× as long as wide near base. Style apophysis curved laterally and with bluntly rounded apex. Aedeagus with long preatrium almost as long as rest of the aedeagus, dorsal apodeme short, aedeagal shaft narrower than ventral processes disposed at an angle with respect to basal part of shaft, ventral process in lateral view in line with preatrium, narrowed distally and pointed at apex, not forked distally; dorsal apodeme short.
Measurements. Male 4.7 mm long and 1.2mm wide across eyes.
Material examined. INDIA: West Bengal: 1♂, Sukna, 500 ft, E. Himalayas, 3.vii.[19]08, N. A[nnandale]. (BMNH).
Remarks. Dmitriev et al. (2024) validated this name and the species was placed in the genus Phlogotettix. However, M. fanjingshanensis lacks the reddish brown crown with a central large black spot, the almost horizontally placed arms of the connective, a sclerotized brace on the dorsal surface of the subgenital plate and a well-developed dorsal apodeme found in the typical species of Phlogotettix. M. fanjingshanensis has a more or less very similar aedeagus to that of M. himalayensis but differs from it, apart from the coloration and size, in the unforked ventral process of the aedeagal shaft. Therefore, this species is transferred to the genus Monobazus.
description: Published as part of VIRAKTAMATH, C. A., WEBB, M. D. & YESHWANTH, H. M., 2025, Review of the Monobazus-group leafhopper genera (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Deltocephalinae) from the Indian subcontinent with description of five new genera and twenty-eight new species, pp. 1-105 in Zootaxa 5567 (1) on pages 30-31, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5567.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/14703735