Protohermes walkeri Navas 1929
Creators: name: Hassan, Muhammad Asghar
name: Hayashi, Fumio
name: Liu, Xingyue
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Megaloptera
Corydalidae
Protohermes
Protohermes walkeri

description: Protohermes walkeri Navás
(Figs. 4–7)
Protohermes walkeri Navás, 1929: 38. Type locality: India (Simia [= Simla or Shimla]).
Diagnosis. Head yellowish brown, vertex posterolaterally with three pairs of black markings; anterolateral portion of pronotum with a pair of slender, hook-like, black vittae, posterolateral portion of pronotum with two pairs of black markings (outer markings larger and longitudinally extended, inner markings small) and a pair of transverse black stripes. Wings pale smoky brown; forewing with some yellowish markings and greyish stripes on costal cellules. Male sternum 9 posteriorly with a deep, trapezoidal incision, forming a pair of slender digitiform posterolateral lobes; ectoproct nearly half in length of tergum 9, posteromedially distinctly produced and bearing a tuft; fused gonocoxites 10 medially not widened. Female fused gonocoxites 8 slightly narrowed posteriad, with arcuately convex posterior margin; tergum 9 laterally with a pair of small sac-like lobes; ectoproct with short subtriangular dorsal and semicircular ventral lobes.
Re-description. Male. Body length 32–37 mm; forewing length 38–44 mm; hindwing length 36–39 mm.
Head yellowish brown; vertex posterolaterally with three pairs of black markings, lateral two pairs large, medial pair small punctuate; postocular spines short and blunt. Occiput laterally with a pair of black markings. Compound eyes greyish brown; ocelli yellow, medially margined black; lateral ocelli separated from median ocellus, distance between posterior ocelli slightly shorter than that between antennal fossae. Antennae blackish brown, with scape and pedicel yellowish brown. Mouthparts yellowish brown; mandibles with tips black, distal three segments of maxillary and distal two segments of labial palpi brown.
Prothorax yellowish brown; pronotum anterolaterally with a pair of long hook-like black markings, posterolaterally with two pairs of black markings (outer markings larger and longitudinally extended, inner markings small) and a pair of transverse black stripes. Meso- and metathorax yellow, dorsomedially slightly darker. Legs yellow with dense short yellowish setae; bases of tibiae sometimes black; all tarsomeres 5 black; pretarsal claws reddish brown. Wings slightly smoky brown with several yellowish markings. Forewing with greyish or brownish stripes on costal cellules; proximal half with many yellowish markings on crossveins, slightly connected to each other; a yellowish round marking present at distal 1/3. Hindwing immaculate throughout. Veins yellow, distally much darker; proximal half of RP, MA, MP and CuA alternately black and yellow; bases of A1 and A2 black. RP 7 to 9-branched; MA bifurcate, with posterior branch sometimes bifurcated; 7-12 crossveins between RA and RP; anterior branch of MP 5 to 7-branched, posterior branch of MP 2 or 3-branched.
Abdomen yellowish brown with short yellowish setae. Tergum 9 subquadrate with a deep arcuate anterior incision and shallowly incised posterior margin. Sternum 9 subquadrate, slightly longer than tergum 9, medially strongly inflated, posteriorly with a deep and broad incision, forming a pair of slender digitiform posterolateral lobes. Gonostylus 9 unguiform and distinctly curved dorsomedially. Ectoproct short, nearly half length of tergum 9, subcylindrical, posteromedially distinctly produced into an obtuse process, which bears a tuft of setae. Fused gonocoxites 10 arched, dorsomedial process feebly developed, posteromedially slightly concaved; gonostyli 10 digitiform, slightly curved medially, and slightly inflated distad.
Female. Body length 34–45 mm; forewing length 42–52 mm; hindwing length 35–47 mm.
Fused gonocoxites 8 subtrapezoidal in lateral view, posterior margin arcuately convex in ventral view. Tergum 9 laterally with a pair of small sac-like lobes. Gonocoxite 9 suboval, slightly incised on posteroventral margin, with a small gonostylus 9 at tip. Ectoproct short, with posterior margin incised, forming short subtriangular dorsal and semicircular ventral lobes.
Material examined. PAKISTAN: Azad Jammu and Kashmir: 2♂ 4♀, District Bagh, Bagh city, [34.5844°N 73.4638°E], 1628 m, 3.viii.2019, A. Mateen (NIM); 1♂ 3♀, District Poonch, Rawalakot, Nirgolla Waterfall Park, [33.8356°N 73.7357°E], 1567 m, 2/ 8.viii.2019, M.A. Hassan (CAU); INDIA: West Bengal: 1ex, Darjeeling (NHM); 1♀, Nord de L’Inde [northern India], 1855, Cie [Compaynie] Des Indes (MNHN); 1♀, North India (NHM); 1♀, [no locality data] 68.3, Saunders (NHM); 1♂, [no locality data] (CAU); NEPAL: Bagmati: 1♀, near Birganj, Lothar, 137 m, 1.ix.1967 (CNC); Gandaki: 3♀, Ganesh Himal, Paidobesy, 700 m, 3 km North of Betrawati, 11/ 12.ix.1995, P. Gyulai & A. Garai (HNHM).
Distribution. India (Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal); Nepal (Bagmati, Gandaki); Pakistan (Azad Jammu and Kashmir).
Remarks. This species is one of the most poorly known megalopteran species as there had been no more information rather than the original description (Navás 1929), in which a male specimen (i.e. the holotype, probably lost or damaged) from an untraceable locality, Simia (may be a misspelling of Simla) [Shimla], India was briefly described with illustrations of head and pronotum and of a ventral view of male genitalia. The cephalic and pronotal markings in our new materials including both male and female specimens fit well with that in the holotype of P. walkeri based on the original description. Although the male genital figure is simplified in the original description, some important characters in the holotype, e.g. the sternum 9 with deep and broad posterior incision and slender digitiform posterolateral lobes, and the ectoproct posteromedially produced, can been seen in our examined males. In addition, the greyish forewing with yellowish markings and dark stripes on costal cellules as described in Navás (1929) are also present in our examined specimens. Therefore, we are certain of our identifications of P. walkeri.
We place this species in the P. costalis species-group by the widely separated lateral ocelli, the short, subcylindrical male ectoproct, and the female sternum 9 with a pair of sac-like lobes. In appearance, P. walkeri appears similar to the female of P. niger Yang & Yang, 1988 based on the almost same cephalic and pronotal markings (Fig. 6A; Chang et al. 2013: Fig. 4). However, P. niger is a species with distinct sexual dimorphism in body and wing coloration (Chang et al. 2013). The males of P. niger in general are dark in body and wing coloration (Chang et al. 2013: Fig. 2), being greatly different from P. walkeri. In addition, the male sternum 9 has a deep and broad posterior incision, which forms a pair of slenderly digitiform posterolateral lobes in P. walkeri, while it is shallowly incised, with a pair of short subtriangular posterolateral lobes in P. niger.
description: Published as part of Hassan, Muhammad Asghar, Hayashi, Fumio & Liu, Xingyue, 2020, First record of the dobsonfly genus Protohermes van der Weele, 1907 from Pakistan (Megaloptera: Corydalidae), pp. 422-434 in Zootaxa 4732 (3) on pages 427-429, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4732.3.5, http://zenodo.org/record/3667232