Two New Species of Acanthocephala Laporte (Hemiptera: Coreidae) from Bolivia and Colombia.

OLIVERA L.; MELO, MARÍA CECILIA; DELLAPÉ, PABLO M.

La Plata

Encuentro; Sixth Quadrennial Meeting of the International Heteropterists? Society; 2018

The Coreidae or leaf-footed bugs are a diverse groupthat includes the larger terrestrial Heteroptera of striking colors and frequently collected. They present a cosmopolitan distribution, showing greater diversity in tropical and subtropical areas. These insects are phytophagous, and many have a specific association with particular plants, being some of them important agricultural pests. The family contains 519 genera with about 3,098 species worldwide, of which 158 genera are found in the Neotropical region. The genus Acanthocephala Laporte belongs to the Acanthocephalini, and includes 26 species distributed from Canada to Argentina. Species of Acanthocephala are among the largest coreids from America, reaching lengths up to 34 mm, and some of them have been reported as regular pests of crops. They can be recognized by the sharply pointed tylus projecting beyond juga as a compressed plate, the strongly incrassate and dorsally spined or tuberculate hind femora in males, and the sinuate or toothed expanded hind tibiae in both sexes. Most of the species were described in the 19th century and there is confusion about the identity of most of them. Little is known about their host plants, immature stages, and their distribution is inferred from a very few records. The knowledge about the South American species is really poor. According to the literature, there are 15 species recorded from this region, but this number is far from the real diversity from the Neotropics. Recently, Brailovsky studied the Mexican fauna and highlighted the need for a taxonomic revision of the group. Within the context of the doctoral thesis project of the first author, the phylogenetic revision of the genus Acanthocephala and related genera is being carried out. In this contribution we describe two new species of Acanthocephala from Bolivia and Colombia.