Stenopelmatus talpa Burmeister
Creators: name: Weissman, David B.
name: Vandergast, Amy G.
name: Song, Hojun
name: Shin, Seunggwan
name: Mckenna, Duane D.
name: Ueshima, Norihiro
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Orthoptera
Stenopelmatidae
Stenopelmatus
Stenopelmatus talpa

description: Stenopelmatus talpa Burmeister
The Mole Jerusalem Cricket
Figs 161–170, Table 2
1838. Stenopelmatus talpa. Handbuch der Entomologie 2 2(I-VIII): 721. Because this species is the type of the genus, we present Burmeister’s entire description, for both the genus and species, as translated by Sigfrid Ingrisch (pers. comm. to DBW, December, 2019): Then 31. (340) Genus
Stenopelmatus *
“This genus resembles the preceding genus in head and legs, differs by complete absence of wings. Head very large, oval, vertex gradually passing over into frons. Eyes small, not above, but inserted in middle of the lateral area of the head; between them, in middle of the forehead insert the not very long but stout antennae that are separated by a wide “callus” [it obviously means “fastigium”]. Mouthparts strong, especially the very strong mandibles of the male. Palpi moderately long, the segments compressed, the last segment with oblique tip. Pronotum belt-like, not widened backwards; meso- and metanotum similar to the abdominal segments, without a trace of wings. Legs transverse, the last ones wider. Abdomen large and thick, egg-shaped, terminates into two hairy ... [maybe it means segments?], the male also with two cerci, the female with a short ovipositor that terminates into 4 tips/teeth. Legs very short, clumsy and stout. Femur unarmed, evenly thick, laterally compressed; tibiae fusiform, with 2 or 4 rows of spines. Feet small, without lobes [pulvillus?], with narrow bottom and large claws, the first segment only longer, otherwise formed as the following (segments). The species known to me live in warm regions of both hemispheres.”
“2. St. talpa *: red-brown [testaceus = color of a roof-tile], abdomen oval brown; hind tibiae similar to femora, with 4-5 external and 6-7 internal spines. Body length 1” [25.4 mm]. From Zimapan in Mexico [our emphasis]; in Sommers, Germars and the Halle collection.”
According to S. Ingrisch (personal communication to DBW, December, 2019): “As far as I am informed, specimens from the Burmeister collection can be in Berlin or Halle and some in Vienna too.” We can account for 4 specimens of S. talpa in all three of the collections mentioned in the original description. On OSF, the female in Berlin is #1056, is 37 mm long, and is labelled from “ Mexico Gerhold” (Gerhold is the collector) and is probably from the Germars collection, according to Ingrisch. For Halle, Ingrisch notes that “the number of specimens of Orthoptera in Halle is low and they are sparsely labelled.” The OSF pictures 2 specimens from Halle: the female is 24 mm long while the nymph is 13 mm long. Ingrisch also notes: “The specimens of S. talpa in Berlin and Halle are not specifically marked as from Burmeister’s collection. None of them carries a note that it might be from Zimapan.” Karny (1927) also wrote about these two specimens in Halle (female and nymph) “correctly identified by Brunner v. W.”. In NHMW Vienna, Hubbell (1960) saw an adult female (Fig. 161) with the following label data: (1) Br: 7796 Mexico (2) Mexico coll. Br. v. W. ex coll. Sommer (3) red label Type. (4) Coll. Nat. Mus Wien (5) S. talpa. Measurements in mm: Body length 31.5, hind femur length 12.6, hind femur width 4.5. Rear leg tibia with 5 inner and 3 outer spines. On left rear leg ringlet, abnormal articulated spine #5 (next to longest) ½ length compared to right leg. Hubbell (1960) noted he thought this specimen could be the lectotype but, contrary to his usual practice in other European museums, when he was more certain as to type status, he did not place such a label.
These 4 European museum specimens have no dates, but they do have labels that say S. talpa, Mexico. These do not appear to be original labels, just later ID labels as the labels are different depending on the museum. The folks who have studied this situation well: (1) TH Hubbell from the US in 1960, when he toured many European museums looking for types and type series; (2) Sigfrid Ingrisch, who lives in Germany and knows the German types; and (3) John Hollier who is in Geneva and has published extensively on these old Orthoptera types, have all indicated that they cannot definitively say if these are syntypes or not. Certainly, there is no past claim in the literature where anyone has called any of the 4 specimens a holotype or lectotype. So, no one seems to know what the specimens are because the original description was so poor and the bookkeeping so sparse. We are not sure how we would prove that the original syntypes were lost or destroyed, although it is easy to prove that they have been searched for in all of the likely places.
It is because of this syntype series uncertainty, and the importance of correctly associating a species with this name, that we take “advantage” of the doubts surrounding possible specimens in the syntype series, and now designate a neotype: adult male, in alcohol (with hooks) (Figs 162, 163): Mexico, Hidalgo, Hwy 85 @ km sign post 163.5. 3-vi-2008. 20° 55’ 42.0” -99° 12’ 29.2”, 6430’ S08-39, R08-13 & R08-42. DBW & DC Lightfoot. Molt to adult 18-vii-2008. Deposited CAS, CASENT type #20086. The neotype site is 23 air km from the northern most turnoff, from Hwy 85, toward Zimapán, the stated type locality. Measurements in mm: Body length 38.55, hind femur length 14.97, hind femur width 5.27. Fore tibia with 3 ventral spurs; middle leg with 8 calcars, 2 ventral spurs; rear tibia (Fig. 164) with 5 inner and 4 (right side) and 3 (left side) outer spines, 2 ventral spurs. Slight indication of furrow on face (Fig. 164). Adult female unknown, unless the specimen in Vienna, discussed above, is such.
Distribution. Unknown and there are specimens in both ANSP and UMMZ collections, from states around Hidalgo, that look similar to the neotype.
Recognition characters. Hopping, medium to large sized adults, reddish head, pronotum and legs when alive, drum as below.
Drum. Male only known: soft, short, irregular series (R08-13 & R08-42) of from 2 drums, over 0.48- 0.56s, up to 6 drums, over 1.6s (3.8 d/s). The 2 series of 4 drums each in Fig. 165 were expanded from best superseries (Fig. 166) of 11 variable series over 52.7s at 20.5°C.
Derivation of name. “talpa” is Latin for mole, probably is reference to the subterranean nature of JCs.
Habitat: Neotype collected in fairly open oak-pine-sweetgum (Liquidambar) forest (Figs 167, 168), trees less than 15m tall, on 10-20% slopes, with lots of understory growth. Minimal grazing although some cow pies seen. Ground dry even under rocks and logs. No epiphytes seen. DBW and DC Lightfoot tore apart 3 rotten logs in 4-man hours (Fig. 167). All 3 collected nymphs were deep inside logs where wood was moist and adult (no larvae) passalid beetles seen. One mid instar female JC under large cow pie, during daytime, under tree cover. In contrast to the forest at the neotype locality, the habitat around Zimapán is lower (1770m vs 1960m at type locality) and dryer and is categorized as North America Level 3 Ecoregion (12.2.1): Hills and Interior Plains with Xeric Shrub and Mesquite Low Forest: http://ecologicalregions.info/data/cec_na/NA_LEVEL_III.pdf
Behavior. All 3 nymphs (Fig. 169) moved quickly when exposed, including jumping well and biting. None to oatmeal that same night despite long trail being laid.
Life cycle and seasonal occurrence. At neotype locality, 1 large male, 1 medium male, and 1 medium female during daytime in 3 downed trees; 1 mid instar female under cow pie.
DNA. Nuclear F2119, and mtDNA F2031 and F2121 all recovered closest (Fig. 10 & Fig. 9) to S. typhlops.
Discussion. We still have one historical issue to deal with. In his original description, Burmeister describes 4-5 outer and 6-7 inner rear leg tibial spines. Unfortunately, he provided no drawings in his original 1838 description and it was not until 1897 (Fig. 170, Biologia Centrali Americana), that an image of S. talpa was actually provided. But that drawing is misleading - the spines on the hind tibia are drawn so that they look larger and thicker than they actually are, plus the inner and outer ones overlap. Additionally, if Burmeister counted a few of the articulated ringlet calcars, or the 2 articulated spurs on the ventral surface of the rear tibia, then he could have gotten his 6-7 inner spines as opposed to the actual 3-4 unarticulated ones that are there. Unfortunately, Barrientos-Lozano et al. (2013, p. 12) reproduced this misleading image of S. talpa.
The type locality of S. talpa is given as Zimapan. We have collected 2 Stenopelmatus species in that area: our newly described, small black S. zimapan, found in Zimapán and the large, reddish S. talpa. Given the color (redbrown) and size (25mm) in the original description, S. talpa can only refer to our neotype.
We did get several other nocturnal orthopteroids to our oatmeal trail at the neotype locality, including Anabropsis, Gryllus, Pediodectes, and some camel crickets. Sánchez-Xolalpa et al. (2017) discuss the biology of what they called S. talpa from Puebla State, Mexico. We make no guess as to the identity of their specimens.
description: Published as part of Weissman, David B., Vandergast, Amy G., Song, Hojun, Shin, Seunggwan, Mckenna, Duane D. & Ueshima, Norihiro, 2021, Generic relationships of New World Jerusalem crickets (Orthoptera: Stenopelmatoidea: Stenopelmatinae), including all known species of Stenopelmatus, pp. 1-122 in Zootaxa 4917 (1) on pages 97-103, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4917.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/4472033