Lissaptera Usinger and Matsuda 1959
Creators: name: Larivière, Marie-Claude
name: Larochelle, André
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Aradidae
Lissaptera

description: Genus Lissaptera Usinger and Matsuda, 1959
Fig. 15, 23, 31–32, 44–47, 79–80
Acaraptera (Lissaptera) Usinger and Matsuda, 1959: 149.
Lissaptera Usinger and Matsuda, 1959. Elevated to generic status by Kormilev and Froeschner, 1987: 83.
Type species. Acaraptera completa Usinger and Matsuda, 1959, by original designation.
Description (incrustation removed). Apterous. Body pear-shaped; length about 3.0– 3.5 mm (male), 3.6–3.9 mm (female). Head. Eyes rather large in relation to head, granulate. Postocular tubercles rounded-subquadrate, slightly to moderately produced laterally. Rostrum arising from an open atrium. Thorax. Pronotum separated from notal plate (fused mesonotum, metanotum, and dmtg I–II) by a distinct suture. Pronotum. Single-ring collar barely set off from anterior margin, without lateral tubercles or posteriorly produced subtriangular plate. Disc bearing a moderately large, smooth, slightly convex, subrectangular to hourglass-shaped plate from anterior to posterior margin. Lateral portions with a curved or slightly angular submarginal bead extending from anterior to posterior margin. Mesonotum, metanotum and dmtg I–II fused into a smooth notal plate interrupted only by a median transverse suture between dmtg I–II (fused notal plate absent in other genera). Legs. Coxal lobes rugose. Trochanters and femora demarcated from each other. Femora granulate, slightly longer than tibiae. Protibiae with fine ventral spines and apical comb. Abdomen. Tergal plate (dmtg III–VI) completely fused, with or without faint longitudinal carinae between inner and outer apodemal spots. Dmtg IV–V smooth on each side of reduced, posteriorly subtriangular plate carrying scent gland openings, VI smooth, with slight median elevation, without median plate. Scent gland openings (or scars thereof) three in number, first large, displaced posteriorly on dmtg IV, second very small, third evanescent or lacking. Connexivum consisting of dorsal laterotergites (dltg) and reflexed part of pleuron delimited from each other by a carina; reflexed part of pleuron extending forward to posterolateral angles of pronotum. Dorsal laterotergites (dltg) with a pair of distinct, rounded, smooth apodemal spots of similar size. Dltg II–III fused, narrowly subtriangular, extending forward to ‘mesonotal area’ of fused notal plate; IV–VII subrectangular (on inner side of carina). Spiracles II–VII lateral (visible from above). Pattern of apodemal markings 2:2:1 (dorsal; ventral). Male genitalia. Pygophore trilobate (Fig. 15, posterodorsal view); dorsal lobes somewhat crescent-shaped, with thickened lateral margin giving rise to curved oblique lines of coalesced granules, flat or slightly produced backward, separated by a wide depression with a faint longitudinal ridge; ventral lobe broadly rounded-subtriangular medially, slightly produced; dorsal opening wide; paramere heads nearly fully visible as large boot-shaped structures; posterior rim with very short, anteriorly directed, subtriangular projection on each side of median suture. Paratergites VIII (Fig. 23, outer lateral view) with an apically acuminate, rounded-subtriangular head; spiracle subapical.
Remarks. This genus is known from Lord Howe Island and New Zealand. Lissaptera is the only New Zealand genus where the mesonotum, metanotum and dmtg I–II of abdomen are fused into a mostly uninterrupted, smooth notal plate. In addition to rostral and connexival characters used by Usinger and Matsuda (1959) to group this genus with Acaraptera, the two genera also share a number of other unique characters among New Zealand Carventinae,e.g., a single-ring collar barely set off from anterior margin of pronotum and lacking lateral tubercles, abdominal spiracles positioned laterally and all visible from above, a 2:2:1 pattern of dorsal and ventral apodemal markings, and male parameres with boot-shaped heads nearly fully exposed in the dorsal opening of the pygophore. Lissaptera is easily separated from Acaraptera by characters of the thoracic notum listed in the key to genera. A number of other noteworthy morphological differences include a more reduced plate around abdominal scent gland openings, the first visible connexival segment extending further anteriorly, a different configuration of the male pygophore, especially the less strongly produced ventral lobe. The genus Lissaptera was previously known by the type species (L. completa) from the Three Kings Islands (TH) located 56 km off the northern tip of the North Island. A second species (L. heissi) is described here from the northernmost Aupouri Peninsula at the very top of the North Island, an area which was also an island at some point during the Pliocene and Pleistocene (Buckley and Leschen 2013).
description: Published as part of Larivière, Marie-Claude & Larochelle, André, 2022, Synopsis of the subfamily Carventinae in New Zealand (Heteroptera: Aradidae), pp. 1-54 in Insecta Mundi 2022 (961) on pages 6-7, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7399305