Brevistoma bourboni Zheng & Ni & Aspöck & Aspöck & Badano & Nel & Liu 2025, stat. rev.
Creators: name: Zheng, Yuchen
name: Ni, Ziyang
name: Aspöck, Ulrike
name: Aspöck, Horst
name: Badano, Davide
name: Nel, André
name: Liu, Xingyue
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Neuroptera
Nemopteridae
Brevistoma
Brevistoma bourboni

description: Brevistoma bourboni (Navás, 1931) stat. rev.
(Figs 1B; 5; 11C; 12)
Savigniella bourboni Navás, 1931: 116 (type locality: “Komadoucou Yobé, de Mainé Sovoa a Bosso” = Niger: Diffa, Komadougou Yobé (river), between Mainé Soroa and Bosso; lectotype in MNHN). Tjeder, 1967: 369 (Brevistoma). Güsten, 2003: 136 (as a synonym of B. bardii).
Diagnosis. Vertex barely raised, generally brown, anteriorly pale. Male antenna nearly half length of forewing. Frons and gena pale. Pronotum yellowish brown, with a pair of curved dark brown stripes. Mesoprescutum anteriorly dark brown, posteriorly yellowish brown; mesonotum laterally with a pair of dark brown stripes; mesoscutellum with a reverse T-shaped dark brown marking. Forewing generally hyaline. Hind wing mostly hyaline, distal part of hind wing with two brown marking. Male posterior gonocoxites 9 trapezoid falcate and protruded caudally, internal projection oblique inward protruded in lateral view.
Re-description. Size. Head width, 2.13 mm; forewing length, 20.62 mm; hind wing length, 39.66 mm.
Head. Vertex barely raised, generally brown, anteriorly pale. Male antenna nearly half length of forewing; scape and pedicel pale yellow; flagellum brown, covered with many short-tapered setae. Each flagellomere wider than long in male (Fig. 11C). Frons pale, medially with a pair of brown spots; male frons nearly half as long as wide. Gena pale. Male clypeus brown, as long as wide. Labrum brown, truncated on distal margin. Maxillary palpus columniform. Labial palpus slender. Cardo and stipe pale yellow. Mandibles yellowish brown, elongate. Rostrum nearly as long as half of head width (Figs 5D–E).
Thorax. Yellowish brown with some dark brown markings. Pronotum with a pair of curved dark brown stripes. Mesoprescutum anteriorly dark brown, posteriorly yellowish brown; mesonotum laterally with a pair of dark brown stripes; mesoscutellum with a reverse T-shaped dark brown marking. Metanotum extremely short. Meso- and metapleurae generally pale yellow (Fig. 5D).
Legs. Slender, generally pale yellow. Tibial spur weakly developed. Tarsomeres 2–4 with some stout setae ventrally; pretarsal claws dark reddish brown, slightly curved (Fig. 5C).
Wings. Forewing generally hyaline, apex rounded; subcostal area and pterostigma pale yellow; costal crossveins not forked; 12–14 presectoral crossveins present; RP with four branches; 3A not closed to forewing margin. Hind wing slender, ribbon-like, nearly twice as long as forewing, mostly hyaline; distal part of hind wing with two dark brown markings; pterostigma brown (Figs 1B; 5A–B).
Abdomen. Pale yellow, laterally with a pair of dark brown stripes. Male genitalia (mainly based on Tjeder, 1967). Sternum 9 nearly twice as long as ectoproct, rectangular in ventral view, covered with some slender setae (Fig. 5F). Anterior gonocoxites 9 short, nearly as long as gonostyli 11 in lateral view, V-shaped in ventral view; posterior gonocoxites 9 trapezoid falcate and protruded caudally, internal projection oblique inward protruded in lateral view; gonocoxites 11 thick arched, medially with some short setae; gonostyli 11 swollen, as a pair of wide lingulate processes, slender and upward in lateral view. Ectoproct subtriangular in lateral view. Female genitalia. Unknown.
Type material examined. Lectotype ♂, “Komadoucou Yobé, de Mainé Sovoa a Bosso, Prince Sixte de Bourbon, 1929” = NIGER: Diffa, Komadougou Yobé (river), between Mainé Soroa and Bosso (MNHN).
Distribution. Niger (Diffa).
Remarks. Güsten (2003) treated B. bourboni as a junior synonym of B. bardii, although he did not provide a morphological support for his statements. Nevertheless, B. bourboni is characterized by significant differences from the specimens of L. bardii that were examined by us. In B. bourboni, the anterior vertex, gena and frons are pale, the paired stripes on pro- and mesonotum are distinct, and the mesoscutellum has a distinct reverse T-shaped dark brown marking; while in L. bardii, the anterior vertex and the frons are pale yellow, the paired stripes on pro- and mesonotum are indistinct, and the mesoscutellum has no marking. Moreover, the type locality of B. bourboni is in the southern part of Niger (Maine Sovoa), an area of semi-arid Sahel Savanna, while the type locality of B. bardii is located in Libya (Al Kufrah), in the central Sahara Desert. These two regions are far apart. For these reasons, the treatment of Güsten (2003) is not plausible, and we hereby restore the validity of B. bourboni stat. rev.
description: Published as part of Zheng, Yuchen, Ni, Ziyang, Aspöck, Ulrike, Aspöck, Horst, Badano, Davide, Nel, André & Liu, Xingyue, 2025, A hidden treasure along Silk Roads: An unexpected new species of spoon-winged lacewings from Xinjiang, China, and a revision of the genus Brevistoma Tjeder, 1967 (Neuroptera: Nemopteridae), pp. 97-118 in Zootaxa 5566 (1) on pages 102-105, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5566.1.4, http://zenodo.org/record/14612939