Cheirochelinae MONTANDON 1897
Creators: name: Sites, Robert W.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Naucoridae

description: SUBFAMILY CHEIROCHELINAE MONTANDON, 1897 E
FIGS 3A, 10B, 11B
Type species: Cheirochela assamensis Hope, 1840.
Taxonomic history: This subfamily has included three tribes: Cheirochelini Popov, 1970 (Indochina to India and Borneo), Sagocorini La Rivers, 1971 (New Guinea and the Philippines) and Tanycricini La Rivers, 1971 (New Guinea). The taxonomic composition of Sagocorini has undergone recent changes because of considerations of evolutionary relationships based on characters related to male genitalia and head structure. The Philippine endemic genera Asthenocoris Usinger, 1937, Philippinocoris D. Polhemus & J. Polhemus, 1987 (as Sagocoris) and Stalocoris La Rivers, 1969 were originally placed in Sagocorini, but later transferred to Naucorinae (Zettel, 2001).
Revised taxonomy: With the taxonomic changes proposed herein, the subfamily Cheirochelinae is here restricted to only the previously recognized tribe Cheirochelini, comprising the Indochinese genera Cheirochela and Gestroiella and the Bornean Coptocatus. The remaining seven genera in the former tribes Sagocorini and Tanycricini were recovered in a distantly related clade and are here transferred to Naucorinae. As such, Cheirochelinae is retained as a valid subfamily but with only three constituent genera.
Diagnosis: Diagnostic features for the subfamily were provided by Polhemus et al. (2008) in a revision of the tribe Cheirochelini as the following: the vertex is strongly produced posteriorly; the antennae are stout, with segments 1–3 subequal in length and about as wide as long, and segment 4 slightly longer; the antennae are set in elongate, concave sockets beneath the eyes; the rostrum and labrum are recessed into a deep cavity under the head; the labrum is reduced and barely visible at the base of the rostrum; the maxillary plates adjacent to the rostral cavity lie in a horizontal orientation; the head is strongly prolonged forward of the eyes and rostral cavity, forming an anteclypeal shelf; the fore tarsus and claw are fused to form a single segment; fore and hind tibiae bear pads of short, dense setae ventrally at their apices; abdominal medio- and laterosternites are fused to form undivided sterna on segments IV– VI, lateral sections of these plates adjacent to spiracles bear groups of small, ovate, glabrous depressions; the parameres are symmetrical, overlapping and extending to approximately half the length of the aedeagus; the aedeagus is symmetrical with the central portion sclerotized and apex lyre shaped.
Comments: The genera Cheirochela and Gestroiella occur from southern China throughout Indochina west to India; Coptocatus is restricted to Borneo and is found in all three countries represented on the island. These are large, impressive insects occurring in fastflowing streams.
description: Published as part of Sites, Robert W., 2022, Phylogeny and revised classification of the saucer bugs (Hemiptera: Nepomorpha: Naucoridae), pp. 1245-1286 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 195 on pages 1259-1261, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab105, http://zenodo.org/record/6994599