A guide to the planthoppers of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India)

This is a guide to the Lanternflies (Family Fulgoridae) of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India). Yes, this is the fist journal post here, but I will be making many more!

Introduction

Ok, I know what most of you are thinking, why take off such a cool project with limited island diversity? Well, I feel that islands biodiversity is amazing, and here's why:

This section is not important, and therefore you can skip it. But if you are still interested.

Let's take an example that even appears in general knowledge books these days, The dragon's blood tree from the island of socotra is found no where else in the world. This is called the "Hateg island syndrome", a pellicular name for this phenomenon, it gets its name from Hateg island, a prehistoric island which was situated in modern day Europe during the late cretaceous. Now this is just to make understand about how being isolated eventually brigs weird things to happen, like the dragon's blood tree: There, the dinosaurs, including theropods, were small, and surprisingly, the t.rex sized carnivores were pterosaurs. The biggest of them was hatzegopteryx.

Ok, back to the planthoppers.

List and identification

List

Pyrops
|_ P.andamanensis
|_ P. azureus
|_ P. rogersi

Penthicodes
|- Subgenus Penthicodes
| |_ P.(Penthicodes) nicobarica
|- Subgenus Ereosoma
| |_ P.(Ereosoma) atomaria
| |_ P.(Ereosoma) puchella

Polydictya
|_ P.negerito

Anaya
|_ A. mesochlora

Identification

aberrations
A&N Is = Andaman and Nicobar Islands;
Fr = Frons = Front (in Pyrops, bottom) part of the face;
M = Membrane = the lines on insect wings;
V= Ventrally = from the bottom veiw of something;
Cp = Cephalic process = "snout";
U = unicolourus = one colour;
D = dorsally = the side view of something;
P = pronotum = dorsal part of thorax;
K = carina = keel-like elevation;

No one needs to be an expert to id: they only need the info at one place;

Pyrops

Pyrops is defined by an extremely long snout and large size. they are the only of their kind from the A&N IS.

Head black with Fr and ventral part of cephalic process yellow; Femur yellow-brown; forewings with yellowish white spots = P.andamanensis;

Head mostly bluish green or dark brown; Femur dark brown to black; forewings with spots U or including a central spot coloured as the rest of the forewings = P.azureus or P. rogersi;

Head mostly bluish green; spots on forewings uniformly bluish white; forewings with M similarly coloured = P. azureus;

Head dark brown; spots on forewings white with central spot coloured as forewings; forewing blackish green and M brown = P. rogersi;

Penthicodes

Head with short cephalic process distinct; abdomen D brown; forewings partly bluish green and M distinctly paler; posterior wings brown with large blue marking = P. nicobarica;

Head and P pale yellow-brown; forewings with M unspotted and usually 2 large spots on front edge of the forewings; legs uniformly dark brown to black = P. atomaria;

Head and thorax uniformly coloured; forewings with small dark brown spots on M and front edge of the forewings without 2 large black spots, showing only small dark brown spots; legs with pale rings = P. pulchella;

Polydictya

Head without cephalic process; Fr smooth, without K; forewings with very dense M = Polydicta negerito;

Anaya

Head pale peachish-yellow, white forewings; large black dots on wings; M is black near the edges of the forewings but white near the center = Anaya mesochlora;

Publicado el 28 de enero de 2023 por aaravmishra aaravmishra

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