Polyphaga obscura Chopard 1929
Creators: name: Qiu, Lu
name: Che, Yan-Li
name: Wang, Zong-Qing
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Blattodea
Corydiidae
Polyphaga
Polyphaga obscura

description: Polyphaga obscura Chopard, 1929   
(Figures 1a–d; 3m, q)  
 Polyphaga obscura Chopard, 1929: 254, ‘ Afghanistan: Paghman, Gbg. Kabul’, fig. 24, female supra-anal plate, pl. VIII, fig. 3, 1 male type; Bey-Bienko 1950: 298; Princis 1952b: 33; Princis 1953: 173; Princis 1962a: 52; Huang, Wu, Du and Shao 1996: 274, figs 1–5, 7–8, pl. I, 1–7.   
 Material examined   
 3 females, 2 nymphs. CHINA: Xinjiang: 2 females, Yecheng County, Kashgar Prefecture, V.1983, Zhi-Tao Zhang leg. (SWU); 1 female, Kashgar Prefecture, X.1981, Zhao-Ning Gao leg. (SWU); 2 nymphs, Kashgar Prefecture, 1335 m, 16 June 1959, A-Fu Tian leg. (IZCAS).   
 Type material examined from photos   
 Syntype ‘ cotype ’ of Polyphaga obscura, male, AFGHANISTAN: ‘ Kabul, Afghanistan’ (MNHN); syntype of Polyphaga obscura, 1 female, AFGHANISTAN: ‘Afghanistan: Kandahar.’, ‘H. Roberts Coll./B.M. 1926–395.’ (NHMUK); syntypes of Polyphaga obscura, 2 females, CHINA: ‘E. Turkestan, Kachgar (now Kashgar, in Xinjiang, China), Weston Coll: B.M. 1922.199’ (NHMUK); syntypes of Polyphaga obscura, 4 females, CHINA: ‘Kachgar, 17/9/88’ (NHMUK).   
 Diagnosis   
 According to Chopard (1929), the male P. obscura can be distinguished from the other male Polyphaga species by its blackish but dull colour. The female is intermediate in size between P. aegyptiaca and P. saussurei.   
 Redescription   
 Female. Body length: 30.7–33.5 mm, body width (measured at the widest point): 22.5– 24.6 mm. Body generally unicoloured, dark brown (Figure 1a–b). Head round, dark brown. Vertex concealed. Eyes small, wide apart; ocelli reduced into two white spots; antennae short; anteclypeus and basal part of labrum white. Pronotum dark brown, arched, apex protruded, anterior margin white, gradually narrowing laterally; anterolateral margins of pronotum with long brown hair (Figure 3m); mesonotum and metanotum brown, lateral margins with long brown hair. Legs dark brown, spines on the legs dark brown, arolia absent (Figure 3q). Abdomen dark brown; supra-anal plate transverse, apex not very protruded, with a small medial emargination, and a longitudinal shallow indentation extended reaches to about half of the supra-anal plate length; subgenital plate with apex bulging, round.   
 Nymph. Female nymph similar to the female adult, sixth tergum of abdomen with two small yellowish-white spots laterally (Figure 1c–d). Male nymph unknown.   
 Distribution   
China: South Xinjiang; Afghanistan: Kabul, Kandahar; Uzbekistan: Samarkand; Turkmenistan: Repetek.  
 Remarks   
This species is poorly known in China. Previously, only Huang et al. (1996) recorded and described the females and nymphs from Xinjiang. We did not find the male in China, but recorded three females and two nymphs from Kashgar, Xinjiang, one of its type localities.
description: Published as part of Qiu, Lu, Che, Yan-Li & Wang, Zong-Qing, 2018, Contributions to some Corydiinae genera (Blattodea: Corydioidea: Corydiidae) from China, pp. 1433-1461 in Journal of Natural History (J. Nat. Hist.) (J. Nat. Hist.) 52 (21 - 22) on pages 1439-1442, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2018.1463406, http://zenodo.org/record/5174798