Heterocapillus Wagner 1960
Creators: name: Konstantinov, Fedor V.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Miridae
Heterocapillus

description: 5.5. Heterocapillus Wagner, 1960  
Figs 3I, J, 5H, I, 6C, G, 7L, 8O-U, 11D-F  
Heterocapillus Wagner, 1960: 83 (as subgenus of Atractotomus; upgraded by Kerzhner 1962: 379).  
Type species.  
 By original designation: Capsus tigripes Mulsant and Rey, 1852.   
Diagnosis.  
Recognized among other Phylini by the following combination of characters: dorsum uniformly dark brown, usually with whitish basal margin of vertex (Fig. 3I, J); tibiae dirty yellow, with dark brown ventral surfaces, bases, apices, and large spots at bases of tibial spines; antenna uniformly dark brown, two first segments swollen in both sexes, segment I obconic, segment II fusiform (Fig. 5H, I); dorsum and thoracic pleura clothed with moderately flattened silver scales and robust dark simple setae (Fig. 6G); dorsal labiate plate with large, broadly oval sclerotized rings; vestibulum short and wide, C-shaped; vesica with a series of rectangular notches on a strap terminating near secondary gonopore and with two very long, characteristically shaped apical blades.  
 Heterocapillus tigripes forms a sister group to all other representatives of the clade I (Figs 1, 2) which contains Europiella spp., Phaeochiton spp., Plagiognathus spp., and Lobicris basalis. Members of this group share many common traits in the structure of the complex vesica including the presence of longitudinal sclerotized ridges on the lateral strap, additional strap terminating near secondary gonopore, and apical half deeply subdivided into two variously shaped branches. Heterocapillus also possesses a C-shaped sclerotized band located on membrane and associated with secondary gonopore, a feature documented only for Phaeochiton and Lobicris. Phaeochiton differs from H. tigripes in the absence of robust dark setae on dorsum, fusiform antennomere II in both sexes, small pulvillus (Konstantinov 2008c: figs 19, 20), vesica with differently shaped apical blades (Konstantinov 2008c: figs 13, 15, 21), dorsal labiate plate with small sclerotized rings (Konstantinov 2008c: figs 32-34), and S-shaped vestibulum (Konstantinov 2008c: fig. 37). Lobicris may be easily distinguished by the not uniformly dark coloration of dorsum, thin antennomeres, apically tapering sclerotized rings of the dorsal labiate plate, S-shaped vestibulum, and by the presence of inflatable, finely serrate membranous lobe at the apex of vesica. Representatives of several otherwise unrelated genera e.g., Chrysochnoodes (Carapezza 1994: fig. 4f), Josifovius Konstantinov 2008d: figs 18, 20), Megalodactylus (Carapezza 1997: fig. 75), Moissonia (Linnavuori and Al-Safadi 1993: fig. 1a), Pachyxyphus (Pagola-Carte 2015: figs 10c, 11c), and Tinicephalus (Matocq 1993: fig. 23) also possesses a series of rectangular notches on vesica, but not in a form of a separate strap terminating near secondary gonopore. Pachyxyphus linneellus (Mulsant and Rey, 1852) forms an exception (Pagola-Carte 2015: fig. 11c) in having a separate strap with a series of rectangular notches similar to that of H. tigripes. However, this species readily differs in all other respects including body proportions, coloration, vestiture, and vesica structure.   
Redescription.  
 Male. Macropterous, with rather robust oval body. Coloration: Dark brown (Fig. 3I), head, pronotum, and scutellum darker than hemelyron; base of vertex and posterior margin of eye dirty whitish (Fig. 4H); all antennomeres and labium uniformly dark brown; thoracic pleura dark brown, with more or less developed pale edging, scent gland evaporatory area whitish; femora uniformly dark brown with pale edgings at apices, tibiae dirty yellow, with darkened ventral surfaces, bases, apices, and large dark spots at bases of tibial spines; tarsi dark brown; membrane uniformly brown, veins usually entirely or apically pale, rarely brown; abdomen uniformly dark brown. Surface and vestiture: Smooth, moderately shining; dorsum, thoracic pleura, and abdomen with dense, moderately flattened, apically acuminate scalelike silver setae (Fig. 6G); in addition clypeus, area between antennal fossa and eye, vertex, sides of pronotum and hemelytron with robust dark simple setae, contrastingly long, erect to semierect on pronotum and at base of forewing, almost twice shorter, adpressed elsewhere; venter of head with long, pale and thin simple setae; appendages with simple, adpressed to semierect, setae, contrastingly dense and long on antennomeres I and II; each femur with a few dark spines apically, tibial spines dark brown to black. Structure: Head moderately produced anteriorly in dorsal view, strongly declivent; eyes occupying 3/4 of height of head in lateral view, posterolateral margins of eyes contiguous with anterolateral margins of pronotum; vertex weakly convex, with posterior margin slightly attenuate at middle, frons vertical, clypeus weakly produced, usually not visible in dorsal view; antenna inserted near ventral margin of eye; segment I short, obconic, strongly swollen apically, slightly longer than width at apex; segment II swollen along entire length, somewhat fusiform, wider at apical 2/3, about 5 × as long as width, segments III and IV filiform; labium reaching metacoxa. Pronotum trapezoidal, about twice as broad as long, disk distinctly convex, calli indistinct; mesonotum moderately exposed; metathoracic scent-gland evaporatory area broadly triangular. Legs comparatively short, hind femur swollen, broader medially, tibia cylindrical, second and third tarsal segments of nearly equal length, claw (Fig. 7L) with relatively wide base, strongly bent in apical 2/3, pulvillus large, far surpassing midpoint of claw, attached to the claw along whole length. Genitalia: Genital capsule (Fig. 8R) large, almost 0.6 of abdomen length, slightly shorter than basal width, without keels and distinctive ornamentation, dorsal wall basally with a pair of small tubercles at sides. Parameres of typical phyline shape, right paramere lanceolate (Fig. 8P), left paramere (Fig. 8Q) with comparatively thin, flattened and gradually curving processes. Apex of phallotheca as in Fig. 8O. Vesica S-shaped, robust, body of vesica of distinctive curvature and form, with a portion of one strap terminating near secondary gonopore and bearing a series of square dentations (Fig. 8S-U), apical portion of vesica with two large, smoothly curved and gradually tapering blades of equal length, apex of left blade more or less straight, right blade apically lanceolate and strongly upcurved; secondary gonopore large, with well-developed sculpture, far removed from apex and located on membrane at base of apical blades. - Female. Macropterous. Coloration, surface and vestiture: Similar to male (Fig. 3H), but eyes slightly smaller, with correspondingly broader vertex (Table 1); antennomere I with two dark mesial spines usually somewhat adpressed and similar to dark simple setae in male, segment II more distinctly fusiform, widened towards middle, about 5 × as long as wide (Fig. 5I). Genitalia: As in Fig. 11D-F, dorsal labial plate with large, broadly oval sclerotized rings; posterior wall simple, with a pair of very slightly sclerotized, elongate sclerites at sides; vestibulum wide and comparatively short, C-shaped, irregularly sclerotized.   
Remarks.  
 As justified in the relevant part of the discussion section, the genus Heterocapillus is here redefined as monotypic to accommodate its type species, H. tigripes (Mulsant & Rey, 1852).
description: Published as part of Konstantinov, Fedor V., 2023, Plant bugs with swollen antennae: a morphology-based phylogenetic analysis of Heterocapillus Wagner, 1960 and related genera (Hemiptera: Miridae: Phylinae), pp. 845-879 in Arthropod Systematics & amp; Phylogeny 81 on page 845, DOI: 10.3897/asp.81.e104396