The Male Drumming Call ofRhabdiopteryx thienemanniIllies (Plecoptera: Taeniopterygidae; Brachypterainae)

Abstract

Studies in recent decades have revealed that the group Arctoperlaria (Plecoptera) has developed the most diverse and complex system of vibrational communication known in insects (Stewart, 2001). Within this group, the family Taeniopterygidae includes almost 150 species distributed in the Nearctic and Palaearctic regions (Fochetti and Tierno de Figueroa, 2008), but only the vibrational calls of seven species belonging to two genera, Taeniopteryx Pictet, 1842 and Oemopteryx Klapálek, 1902 (e.g. Rupprecht, 1982; Stewart and Zeigler, 1984; Stewart et al., 1991), have been recorded (Stewart and Sandberg, 2006). These latter authors pointed out that all of the seven species present a percussion (drumming) male call, ancestral to slightly derived (change of beat number and/ or intervals). Nevertheless, the several species of Taenionema Banks, 1905 and Doddsia Needham & Claassen, 1925 that have been tested suggest the possibility that some Taeniopterygidae do not drum (Stewart and Sandberg, 2006).The genus Rhabdiopteryx Klapálek, 1902 has a West Palearctic distribution and includes eleven species (Krno, 2004; Vinçon and Murányi, 2009). One of them, R. thienemanni lilies, 1957 is distributed in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France, and the male drumming call is described for the first time in the present work.