Heleocorini Sites 2022, TRIB. NOV.
Creators: name: Sites, Robert W.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Naucoridae

description: TRIBE HELEOCORINI TRIB. NOV.
FIGS 4B, 5A, B, 12, 14A, C, 15B, 21
Z o o b a n k r e g i s t r a t i o n: u r n: l s i d: z o o b a n k. org:act: 8CBB9ABB-857E-4540-8213-1B1648FDF868
Diagnosis: This group includes some taxa with extreme habitat specializations, thus a simple characterization of the tribe is not possible. A feature characteristic for all species except Pogonocaudina indica Sites & Zettel, 2011 and Decarloa darlingtoni La Rivers, 1969 is that the spinose setae of the posteroventral row on the mesofemur are tightly spaced such that adjacent setae or their sockets are in contact or nearly so (Fig. 5a) and number approximately 60–90. In addition, in all except the clade containing Decarloa, Diaphorocoris and Interocoris, the anteroventral seta row on the metafemur is noticeably arcuate or with a posteromesal direction change in the basal third as it extends basally (Fig. 5b).
Comments: Because the clades have a high degree of fidelity with respect to geography and the type species is from Mumbai, the Heleocoris clade from India remains unchanged as the genus Heleocoris (see Comments section above) and the containing group is the new tribe Heleocorini. Representing this clade in the analyses are Heleocoris elongatus Montandon, 1897b, Heleocoris rotundatus Montandon, 1908 and Heleocoris vicinus Montandon, 1910b. Species in the clades containing Heleocoris from Madagascar and Southeast Asia are here transferred to the newly erected genera Tsingala gen. nov. and Heleolaccocoris gen. nov., respectively (described below). Tsingala was recovered with its sister genus Temnocoris, both endemic to Madagascar (red-coloured clades in Fig. 13), in the tribe Laccocorini. Species of Laccocoris from Borneo, Sumatra, the Philippines and Laccocoris dissidens Montandon, 1910, described from Burma, are transferred to Heleolaccocoris along with the Southeast Asian species of Heleocoris (blue-coloured clades in Fig. 13).
Among the Indian waterfall-inhabiting species, Pogonocaudina indica was recovered as a derived member of a clade of Diaphorocoris. Although it exhibits morphological features supporting its distinction as a genus-level taxon, including singlesegmented fore tarsi in both sexes, its evolutionary relationship with species of Diaphorocoris require that the genus be synonymized. As such, the monotypic Pogonocaudina is a junior synonym of Diaphorocoris with the species becoming Diaphorocoris indicus (Sites & Zettel, 2011) comb. nov. Nested in this group of Indian taxa are Interocoris mexicanus (Usinger, 1935) and Decarloa darlingtoni, both from northern tropical America (Mesoamerica and Hispaniola, respectively). These two monotypic genera have long been enigmatic because there is little representation of this subfamily in the New World. That they are most closely related to taxa from India raises new questions about their origin.
Included taxa: Heleocoris and Diaphorocoris occur in India; Heleolaccocoris occurs from the easternmost Indian states and Indochina through the Sunda Islands to the Philippines. Decarloa and Interocoris are American monotypic genera.
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 1265-1266, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab105, http://zenodo.org/record/6994599