Melanoplus ludivinae Fontana, Buzzetti & Mariño-Pérez, 2011, n. sp.
Creators: name: Fontana, Paolo
name: Buzzetti, Filippo Maria
name: Mariño-Pérez, Ricardo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2011
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Orthoptera
Baissogryllidae
Melanoplus
Melanoplus ludivinae

description: Melanoplus ludivinae n. sp.
Diagnosis. general body colour dark brown (Figs. 10–11). Body stout. Pronotum widening caudad with fore margin straight and hind margin concave. Tegmina ovate, elongated. Male subgenital plate very large and simply rounded.
Male description. Head brown with two postocular black stripes. Pronotal disc brown, pronotal lobes with upper half black and lower half white. Tegmina brown. Abdomen brown, black on sides of segments I to V. Venter light brown. Limbs dark brown with two white marks on outer surface of hind femora, two dark areas on inner surface of hind femora, lower surface of hind femora reddish brown. Hind tibiae greenish.
Body stout. Pronotum widening caudad. Pronotal disc with 3 sulci, the fore two interrupted in the middle, fore margin straight and hind margin concave. Metazona puncturated (Fig. 25).
Male furculae adjacent, slender and prolonged to the middle of supragenital plate (Fig. 39). Male cerci slender, apically pointed downward (Figs. 32, 39, 46). Phallic complex: epiphallus well sclerotized, bridge almost straight, anterior process as a short subtriangular downwards directed spine, highly prominent lophi (Fig. 53); dorsal valvae well sclerotized, rugose, dark, very complex, expanded laterally, wider than long, surrounding laterally ventral valvae; ventral valvae, in a posterior view, as long as dorsal, thin, almost rectangular, rugose (Figs. 65–66).
Female description (Fig. 11). Similar to the male. Supragenital plate wide, with sides convergent to rounded apex. Cerci small, conical.
Male measurements (3). Body length 19.7–20.0 (19.79; 0.17); pronotum length 2.9–3.1 (2.96; 0.11); prozona length 1.8–2.0 (1.86; 0.11); metazona length 1.1 and hind femur length 9.5–10.4 (10.15; 0.53).
Female measurements (5). Body length 20.6–24.3 (22.48; 1.60); pronotum length 3.2–3.8 (3.52; 0.25); prozona length 2.0–2.3 (2.12; 0.13); metazona length 1.2–1.6 (1.40; 0.15) and hind femur length 10.7–13.0 (11.8; 0.93).
Type material. Male Holotype: Mexico, Oaxaca, Carr. # 131 Oaxaca-Puerto Escondido, Km 44, Santa María Vexila, 1455 m (16°38’38,5’’ N; 96°51’10,2’’W), 26.X.2007, Legit P. Fontana. F.M. Buzzetti and R. Mariño-Pérez; same data, female Allotype and 5 paratypes (1 male and 4 females); Mexico, Oaxaca, Monte Albán, 1848 m. (17°03’03,7’’ N; 96°45’49,8’’W), 20.XI.2008, 2 female and 1 male paratypes; same locality, 25.X.2007, 1 female paratype.
Type depository. male Holotype, female Allotype and 1 female paratype, CNIN; 1 male and 3 female paratypes, CPF; 1 male and 3 female paratypes, CFMB.
Etymology. We are glad to dedicate this new species to Dra. Ludivina Barrientos-Lozano (Instituto Tecnológico de Cd. Victoria) who intensively studies taxonomy and ecology of Mexican Orthoptera.
Remarks. T hirty-eight species of Melanoplus are known for Mexico (Including the last Mexican described species, Melanoplus solitarius Buzzetti et al, 2010), plus the three species described here.
Mexico represents the southernmost limit of distribution for the genus, with M. mexicanus (Saussure, 1861), M. mixes n. sp., M. oaxacae n. sp. and M. ludivinae n. sp. the southernmost species. This can be explained with the fact that south of Oaxaca the environments change to tropical humid vegetation, being this not the elective habitat for Melanoplus species. It is remarkable that many Mexican endemic Melanoplus species are brachypterous, showing up to date a restricted distribution (Fig. 69). Nevertheless the distribution and species richness of Melanoplus and other Melanoplinae in Mexico is far to be complete and new findings are continuously recorded (Barrientos et al., 2009).
description: Published as part of Fontana, Paolo, Buzzetti, Filippo Maria & Mariño-Pérez, Ricardo, 2011, New Acrididae from Oaxaca State in Mexico (Orthoptera: Caelifera: Acrididae Ommatolampinae, Melanoplinae), pp. 39-55 in Zootaxa 2862 on pages 47-48, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.206593