Rhodopsalta cruentata
Creators: name: Bator, John
name: Marshall, David C
name: Hill, Kathy B R
name: Cooley, John R
name: Leston, Adam
name: Simon, Chris
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Cicadidae
Rhodopsalta
Rhodopsalta cruentata

description: Rhodopsalta cruentata (Fabricius, 1775) (Supporting Information, Figs S3, S 4, S 8)
Rhodopsalta cruentata was described by I. C. Fabricius in 1775 as Tettigonia cruentata (see translation of the original Latin in the Supporting Information, Supplementary Materials). The description was based on specimens collected during Cook’s first Endeavour voyage by the naturalist Joseph Banks or one of his associates, as indicated by ‘Mus. Banks’ in the original description (see also Radford, 1981). Rhodopsalta cruentata possesses, among other features listed in that description, a prominent yellow midline stripe on the head, yellow forewing costa, and prominent red bands on the margins of all but the first or second abdominal segments. In addition, the proximal wing veins are green, the cruciform elevation is uniformly pale yellow–green to red in colour, and a broken silvery midline stripe is usually present from the head to at least the first abdominal segments.
Zimsen (1964: 290) and Larivière et al. (2010: 54) state that two syntypes of this species are lodged at The Natural History Museum in London (NHM). This matches the NHM entomology register from 1863, which records the transfer of two types from the Linnean Society (B. Price, pers. comm.). The two specimens are kept in a separate drawer together with other Banks collection material, and they are accompanied by an unattached outlined label that reads, on two lines, ‘ Tettigonia cruentata / Fab. Entomol. p. 680 n. 10’ and a second unattached small underlined label reading ‘Type’. The outlined label text resembles other labels attributed to Fabricius by Radford (1981).
Both syntypes were photographed for us by B. Price. One of them, number BMNH(E)#668764 (Supporting Information, Fig. S6), is a poor match to the description and current concept of R. cruentata. This specimen is ~ 13.5 mm in body length (tip of head to tip of abdomen). In addition to its NHM code label, it bears handwritten labels reading ‘ New Zealand.’ and ‘63 / 47’. (The latter numbers are written one above the other and indicate entry 47 for 1863 in the NHM specimen register mentioned above.) It has a black ground colour, a small, partial midline stripe on the pronotum, a dark midline stripe through the cruciform elevation and metanotum, and muted, narrow yellow bands on the abdomen, all features that are consistent with N. sericea rather than R. cruentata.
The other NHM syntype, male specimen BMNH(E)#668765 (Fig. 8), bears a red-circled round label that reads ‘Type’ and a handwritten round label ambiguously reading either ‘63 / 47’ or (less likely) ‘69 / 47’, in addition to its NHM specimen code label. The specimen has a body length of ~ 16 mm, has only one (left) antenna protruding anteriorly (the other is tucked beneath the head) and is missing the left forewing. The features of this specimen are consistent with the current concept of R. cruentata, especially the prominent red bands on the margins of the abdominal segments, the prominent yellow midline stripe on the pronotum and the yellow forewing costa. In addition, the specimen possesses a declivous, unflanged pronotum and a subacute, subascending upper pygofer lobe, which is a combination of attributes reported for Rhodopsalta but not the other NZ genera (for illustrations of the male and female genitalia of R. cruentata, see Dugdale, 1972).
Andrews & Gibbs (1989: 105–106) reported finding an unlabelled male of N. sericea pinned alongside an R. cruentata specimen that they inspected in Fabricius’ personal collection now kept at the Zoologisk Museum, Copenhagen. We believe that the Copenhagen specimens are the two indicated by Zimsen (1964: 290) with the parenthetical phrase ‘Kiel 2 specimens’, because the Zoological Museum in Kiel now holds no material of Tettigonia cruentata (M. Kuhlmann, pers. comm.). Photographs of these two specimens sent to us by L. Vilhelmsen confirm the report by Andrews and Gibbs. One specimen is clearly an N. sericea male and bears only a determination label from J. S. Dugdale dated 1987. The other matches the description of R. cruentata and bears a small handwritten label with what looks like the species epithet ‘cruentata’, consistent with other labels made by Fabricius (Zimsen, 1964: 10). Not being part of the Banks collection in London, the two Copenhagen specimens are not regarded as syntypes.
To eliminate the uncertainty caused by the heterogeneous syntype series for the identity of R. cruentata and for genus Rhodopsalta, of which R. cruentata is the type species, we designate NHM specimen BMNH(E)#668765 as the lectotype for Tettigonia cruentata Fabricius, 1775 in accordance with Article 74.7 of the Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN, 1999). Given that the other NHM syntype is not a R. cruentata specimen, we designate no paralectotype.
Rhodopsalta cruentata is the most widely distributed species of the genus, and it can be found singing on a wide range of vegetation types, ranging from grasses and sedges, including those on sand dunes, to native manuka myrtle (Leptospermum scoparium J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.) to introduced species, such as common alder (Alnus glutinosa L.) and kiwifruit (Chinese gooseberry, Actinidia Lindl.). Adults are active from November to April (Myers, 1929b; Larivière et al., 2010).
description: Published as part of Bator, John, Marshall, David C, Hill, Kathy B R, Cooley, John R, Leston, Adam & Simon, Chris, 2022, Phylogeography of the endemic red-tailed cicadas of New Zealand (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Rhodopsalta), and molecular, morphological and bioacoustical confirmation of the existence of Hudson's Rhodopsalta microdora, pp. 1219-1244 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 195 (4) on pages 1236-1238, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab065, http://zenodo.org/record/6985713