Redescription and diagnosis of the African genus Gemeneta Karsch, 1892 (Orthoptera: Acrididae: Catantopinae)

Charly Oumarou Ngoute,Sévilor Kekeunou

doi:10.3897/jor.26.19995

Abstract

The subfamily Catantopinae is a poorly defined subfamily of the Acrididae, having many genera that require taxonomic clarification. The genus Gemeneta from this subfamily is found in African forests and has only two described species, Gemeneta terrea and Gemeneta opilionoides. However, the original descriptions of the genus relied heavily on external female morphology, and a description of male G. opilionoides was completely lacking. The present work provides the first description of the male of G. opilionoides, a morphological description of both species, including internal genitalia, and clarifies the generic diagnosis. This study is a contribution to a better understanding of the taxonomy of Catantopinae in the tropical forests of Africa.

Highlights

The grasshopper subfamily Catantopinae is a rather large taxon with many genera and a great variety of forms, including around 16 tribes, about 382 genera and 52 species distributed over the Old World (Cigliano et al 2017)
Unlike Dirsh (1965), we find that only G. opilionoides has a strongly tuberculate integument and G. terrea has a less tuberculate and granulated integument; G. opilionoides lacks a fastigial furrow – this character is specific to G. terrea; the epiphallic lophi of both species are lobiform but G. opilionoides have wide lophi while those of G. terrea are narrow or short like those described by Dirsh (1965)
There is a strong resemblance between the different genital parts of G. terrea and G. opilionoides

Summary

Introduction

The grasshopper subfamily Catantopinae is a rather large taxon with many genera and a great variety of forms, including around 16 tribes, about 382 genera and 52 species distributed over the Old World (Cigliano et al 2017). In tropical Africa, this taxon includes genera that occupy all terrestrial environments from arid savannah to humid forests (Dirsh 1956a, 1965, 1966, 1970, Jago 1984, Mestre 1988). The genus Gemeneta Karsch, 1892 is a forest genus of Catantopinae in Africa that has only two described species, Gemeneta terrea Karsch, 1892 and Gemeneta opilionoides (Bolívar 1905). G. terrea is widely-distributed, from East to West Africa while G. opilionoides is endemic to the Congo Basin forests, including Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea

Methods

Results

Conclusion