Scaphoidella lii Hassan, Hussain & Xing, 2025, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Hassan, Muhammad Asghar
name: Hussain, Riaz
name: Xing, Jichun
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Cicadellidae
Scaphoidella
Scaphoidella lii

description: (16) Scaphoidella lii sp. nov.
(Figs 1–13)
Description. Body yellowish-brown. Eyes dark brown to grayish, ocelli white. Crown with a corrugated dark transverse band between eyes. Face yellowish-brown; frontroclypeus long and narrow, longer than wide; clypellus narrowed at base and widened distally slightly exceeding outer margin of gena; lora large, length subequal to clypellus, not reaching outer margins of genae. Pronotum with anterior 2/3 brownish-yellow and posterior margin slightly darker brown. Scutellum yellowish-brown, transverse suture depressed, 3 whitish marks at its corners. Forewing yellowish brown, with few indistinctly delimited irregular white spots on corium and clavus.
Head including eyes slightly wider than pronotum. Crown slightly curved anteriorly in frontal view; distance between eyes nearly twice as wide as eyes. Antennae arising close to anterior margin of eyes. Pronotum anterior margin roundly produced, posterior margin slightly concave, with length equal to scutellum. Scutellum triangular, longer than median length of pronotum, with transverse suture.
Male genitalia. Pygofer slightly longer than wide in lateral view, with numerous long macrosetae in distal half, apically obliquely rounded. Valve wide, rather trapezoidal. Subgenital plates oblong, lateral margins evenly rounded, with one row of stout setae along lateral margin. Style long and narrow, basal area slightly broader, preapical lobe feebly developed. Connective Y-shaped, short, arms as long as stem. Aedeagus with shaft slender, cylindrical, slightly curved dorsad in lateral view and slightly widened apically with gonopore at apex; basal paired processes each arising from thin sclerotized arm attached to lateral lobe of aedeagal atrium and connected by transverse bar articulated to connective, posteroventral arms of processes broad at base then abruptly tapered and parallel-sided through most of length with apices abruptly tapered and divergent in ventral view, gradually tapered in lateral view with apices sinuate preapically and extended slightly beyond aedeagal shaft.
Measurements. Length (including tegmen): ♂, 6.2–6.4 mm.
Material examined. China. 1♂ (Holotype), Yunnan Prov., Menghai County, 04 July 2023, coll. Jichun Xing (GUGC); 2♂ (Paratypes), same data as holotype (GUGC).
Etymology. Scaphoidella lii sp. nov. is named after Prof. Zizhong Li (GUGC) in recognition of his landmark contributions to leafhopper taxonomy.
Remarks. This species is distinguished from its congeners by the following combination of characters: overall coloration brown without markings except single black band on anterior margin of crown (Fig. 3) and few white spots on forewing (Fig. 5); male pygofer without spine on dorsal margin; valve trapezoidal; style sharply tapered apically with preapical lobe feebly developed; and aedeagal shaft elongate, slender and evenly curved throughout length with ventral processes extended only slightly beyond shaft.
Distribution. China (Yunnan).
description: Published as part of Hassan, Muhammad Asghar, Hussain, Riaz & Xing, Jichun, 2025, Key to species of the leafhopper genus Scaphoidella Vilbaste, 1968 (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) with description of a new species from China, pp. 567-576 in Zootaxa 5613 (3) on pages 571-574, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5613.3.8, http://zenodo.org/record/15216819