Revision of the genera Nemotha Wood-Mason, 1884 and Tricondylomimus Chopard, 1930 stat. rev., with description of a new species (Dictyoptera: Mantodea)

Summary

The oriental species previously included in the rarely collected genus Nemotha Wood-Mason, 1884 (Mantodea: Iridopterygidae) are revised. N. coomani (Chopard, 1930) and N. mirabilis Beier, 1933 strongly differ from the type species N. metallica (Westwood, 1845) by family-level morphological features, but share a unique type of forefemoral armament with the genera Hapalopeza Stål, 1877 and Amantis Giglio-Tos, 1915, suggesting Nemotha is of a polyphyletic nature. The genus Tricondylomimus Chopard, 1930 is resurrected from synonymy to accommodate T. coomani, T. mirabilis n. comb. and the species which is newly described in this article, T. intermedius n. sp. The monotypic genus Pseudogousa Tinkham, 1937 and its species P. sinensis Tinkham, 1937 are synonymized with Tricondylomimus and T. mirabilis, respectively. The genus Tricondylomimus is placed in Iridopterygidae, while Nemotha is transferred to Hymenopodidae: Anaxarchini.

Résumé

Les espèces orientales précédemment incluses dans le genre rarement collecté Nemotha Wood-Mason, 1884 (Mantodea : Iridopterygidae) sont révisées. N. coomani (Chopard, 1930) et N. mirabilis Beier, 1933 diffèrent fortement de l’espèces type N. metallica (Westwood, 1845) par des caractères morphologiques du niveau familial, mais partagent avec les genres Hapalopeza Stål, 1877 et Amantis Giglio-Tos, 1915 un type unique de l’armature des fémurs antérieurs, suggérant la nature polyphylétique de Nemotha dans sa compréhension actuelle. Le genre Tricondylomimus Chopard, 1930 est ressuscité de la synonymie pour inclure T. coomani, T. mirabilis n. comb. et une espèce nouvellement décrite, T. intermedius n. sp. Le genre monotypique Pseudogousa Tinkham, 1937 et son espèce P. sinensis Tinkham, 1937 sont synonymes respectivement de Tricondylomimus et de T. mirabilis. Le genre Tricondylomimus est placé dans les Iridopterygidae, tandis que Nemotha est transféré aux Hymenopodidae : Anaxarchini.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:EA2C7A1A-DB81-4C9F-959A-4F629736D1BE

Keywords:

• Hymenopodidae
• Iridopterygidae
• taxonomy
• revision
• new species
• oriental region

Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank Roger Roy (MNHN), Christian Schwarz (University Bochum, Germany), Reinhard Ehrmann (SMNK), Michael Ohl (ZMB), Gavin Svenson (CMNH), George Beccaloni (BMNH) and James Hogan (OXUM), without whom this publication in its present form would not have been possible. We are thankful to Amoret Spooner (OXUM) for providing us with high resolution photographs of the holotype of Mantis metallica and to Roger Roy and Marion Depraetere (MNHN) for permission to use the photographs of the T. coomani type specimens. We are indebted to Tushar Mukherjee, Kailash Chandra and the staff of the Orthoptera Section of Zoological Survey of India (Kolkata) for sending us additional N. metallica photos and information, We thank Hong Pang, Zhang Binglan (Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou) and Mark A. McGinley (Lingnan University, Hong Kong) for their efforts to locate Pseudogousa sinensis holotype. We also thank David Yager (University of Maryland) for the information on metathoracical ear of Nemotha and Pseudogousa, Andrey Matalin and Kirill Makarov (Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow) for lending us a specimen of Tricondyla mellyi Chaudoir 1850, Alexander Prosvirov (Lomonosov Moscow State University) for help with a macrophotography system and Sergey Dementiev (Moscow) for the literature on the genus Tricondyla. Furthermore, we would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript. Finally, our special thanks go to Chao Wu (Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China) for providing us with further N. metallica pictures, including the genital photo and the life photographs of the genera revised here.