Cantao parentum
Creators: name: Gerry Cassis
name: Loren Vanags
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2006
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Scutelleridae
Cantao
Cantao parentum

description: Cantao parentum (WHITE 1839) (Figs 1b, 21e, 27, 28a, 29, 30)
Calidea parentum WHITE 1839: 542 (n.sp.); WALKER 1867: 14 (list); LETHIERRY & SEVERIN 1893: 18 (catalogue); SCHOUTEDEN 1904: 19 (list); KIRKALDY 1909: 308 (catalogue); TILLYARD 1926: 149 (description); MCDONALD 1961: 174, 185, figs 1-4 (male genitalia); MCDONALD 1963a: 30 (male genitalia); MCDONALD 1963b: 233, figs 10-12 (female genitalia); MCDONALD 1963c 285 (biology); KUMAR 1964: 58 (morphology); KUMAR 1965: 41 (male genitalia); MCDONALD & CASSIS 1984: 552 (description); MCDONALD 1988: 293 (key, synonymy); CASSIS & GROSS 2002: 592 (catalogue); MILLAR 2005: 78 (glandular chemistry) Cantao pulcHer SCHOUTEDEN 1906: 137 (n.sp.); MCDONALD & CASSIS 1984: 522 (synonymy)
Diagnosis: Cantao parentum is recognised by the following combination of characters: dorsum orange, pronotum with pair of black spots, and scutellum with eight black spots (Figs 1b, 28a); humeral angles rounded (Figs 1b, 28a); male pygophore with ventral forked process (Figs 29e, f); CAII with basal sclerotisation and apical, blunt lobal sclerite (Fig. 30c, d); CAIII fused basally, U-shaped, with lateral margins weakly serrate (Fig. 30d); female terminalia strongly recessed; and, paratergites IX present;
Description: Body elongate-ovoid; large, males9.2-22.5 mm, females 15.5-24.6 mm.
Colouration. Dorsum mostly orange, with patterened black spots (Figs 1b, 28a); body mostly iridescent green-black ventrally. Head: medial regions of clypeus and frons, and vertex green-black, often with iridescent green tinge; jugae and frons orange; antennae and labium fuscous, often with reddish tinge; underside of head red-fuscous; antennae and labium uniformly fuscous. Pronotum: mostly orange, with a pair of small black spots, sublaterally at base of callosite region (Figs 1b, 28a). Scutellum: mostly orange, with eight black spots, three pair sublaterally from anterior margin to just beyond midlength, and single spot along midline at anterior margin and single spot submedially (Figs 1b, 28a). Thoracic pleura: mostly fuscous with purple to green iridescence, with posterior region of proepimeron orange. Legs: mostly fuscous, often with purple to green iridescence, coxae with orange shading. Pregenital Abdomen: venter mostly orange, SII uniformly orange, SIII-SVI with lateral, suboval fuscous markings (Fig. 21e); SVII medially with large iridescent green-fuscous markings, trichobothrial region with short black spot (Fig. 21e); male SVIII mostly orange with iridescent green tinge (Fig. 21e). Female Terminalia: orange. Male Pygophore: iridscent dark green.
Texture. Dorsum smooth to weakly punctulate.
Vestiture. Body with moderate distribution of simple, short pale setae; more densely distributed on head, thoracic pleura and abdominal venter.
Structure. Antennae: AI shortest segment; AII(b)- AIV roughly subequal, AIV longest segment. Labium: reaching between apex of metacoxae and posterior margin of abdominal SII; LI shortest segment; LI longest segment; LIII & LIV subequal. Pronotum: humeral angles rounded (Figs 1b, 28a). Pregenital Abdomen: male abdominal SVIII visible, overlapping posterior margin of Pygophore. Male Genitalia: genital opening of male pygophore with ventral forked process, branches divergent, dorsolaterally strongly tumose (Figs 29e, f, 30a); parameres large, crown weakly hooked, weakly flattened, with prominent basal flange (Fig. 30b); ejaculatory apparatus well-developed, heavily sclerotized; ventral conducting canal elongate, with 10-12 convolutions (Figs 30c, d); CAII singular, membraneous lobe, outer margin at base sclerotized, apex with truncate lobal sclerite (Figs 30c, d); CAIII U-shaped, convergent apically, fused post-thecal margin, heavily sclerotized, margins weakly serrate (Figs 30c, d); vesica elongate, subdistally swollen (Figs 30c, d). Female Terminalia: caudal in orientation, recessed; paratergites VIII subtriangular, depressed medially; paratergites IX small, suboval, gonocoxae I large, subelliptoid, tapered medially. Spermatheca: proximal fecundation canal elongate, heavily sclerotized; reservoir relatively small, oval, heavily sclerotized; distal fecundation canal moderately elongate; proximal and distal flanges present; bulb oval, heavily sclerotized.
Measurements. MCDONALD & CASSIS 1984: Table 3.
Material examined: Queensland: 2♂♂ 1♀, Lockerbie Scrub, Cape York, 11 April 1975, MS Moulds (AM); 2♀♀, North Pine River, A Musgrave, 30 December 1926 (AM; 58634); 1♀, Surfers Paradise, 10 August 1953 (AM); New South Wales: 2♂♂, Lismore, A Musgrave, 1 January 1929 (AM; K47241); 1♀, Tweed Rivers, C Gibbons (AM; K49069).
Distribution: This species is distributed in tropical areas of Queensland and the subtropical areas of eastern Queensland and the Northern Rivers of New South Wales (Fig. 27).
Host plants and biology: MCDONALD (1963c) described the biology of this species, including life history attributes and host plant associations. Cantao parentum is known to breed on three species of the euphorb genus Mallotus; M. claoxyloides, M. discolor and M. pHilippensis. A single specimen was collected on Araucaria cunningHamii, but is treated here as a sitting record, as this species is known to regularly cluster on tall on-host trees during winter aestivation (Monteith, pers. comm.).
Remarks: WHITE (1839) originally described C. parentum from an unspecified location. SCHOUTEDEN (1906) described a sec-ond Australian species of Cantao, C. pulcHer, from a male specimen from Queensland. MCDONALD & CASSIS (1984) synonymized the latter with C. parentum, regarding it, at most, as a colour variation. Our observation indicate that there are variations in the colour patterning of this species, yet there is almost no variation in the male genitalia and we thus endorse this synonymy.
Cantao parentum is a distinctive component of the Australia jewel bug fauna. Some individuals of both sexes are over 20 mm in length. The body is also relatively less convex than all the other species of jewel bugs, and has a bright orange dorsum, with black spots (Fig. 28a). The male genitalia is also distinctive in that CAII is not subdivided (Figs 30c, d). It is easily differentiated from the other species of Cantao (all of which are found outside of Australia), by the arrangement of black spots on the dorsum. In this character, it resembles C. ocellatus, but is distinguished from the latter by having rounded humeral angles (cf. spinose angles) and differences in the male and female genitalia. MCDONALD (1988) provides a key to species of Cantao.
description: Published as part of Gerry Cassis & Loren Vanags, 2006, Jewel Bugs of Australia (Insecta, Heteroptera, Scutelleridae), pp. 275-398 in Denisia 19 on pages 354-355, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12996779