The Philippine archipelago houses an incredibly diverse biota, among which are 122 species of pygmy grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae). Many of them belong to genera without proper taxonomic assignment and some genera, e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiscotettiginae were recently synonymized with Scelimeninae, but the polyphyletic genus Hirrius Bolívar, 1887, with five species endemic to the Philippines and Sulawesi, remained an unsolved issue. Besides similarly widened subapical antennomeres, head and pronotum, other traits suggest that Hirrius members belong to different subfamilies. The genus is now split into four genera, with four new species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring the last century, well-known locust species, such as and , have produced outbreaks of varying degrees in the Balkans. The literature data on outbreaks in the region are scarce, and Croatia is not an exception. This study summarized the data on 23 Orthoptera mass occurrences in Croatia from 1900 to 2023 from 28 localities, representing 12 species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA new genus of the tribe Ephippigerini, Dinarippiger Skejo, Kasalo, Fontana et Tvrtković gen. nov., is described based on the characters of occiput coloration, tegmina coloration, cerci and pronotum shape.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA brief preliminary revision of the genus Scelimena Serville, 1838 (Tetrigidae: Scelimeninae: Scelimenini) from PR China is presented. Scelimena pyrroma Lao, Kasalo, Gao, Deng et Skejo sp. nov.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Balkan peninsula is an important biogeographic region of Europe which houses the Dinaric Alps, a mountain range rich in biodiversity. The fauna of Orthoptera has, in recent years, been an important subject of study in Croatia, but many of the Dinaric mountains in Croatia remain poorly sampled. Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the exception of some foreign expeditions, remains almost completely unknown with regards to the distribution of Orthoptera.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOnly two leaf-like pygmy grasshopper species and specimens are known from Madagascar: the Leatherback Pygmy Grasshopper ( Devriese, 1991) -which has a relatively low median carina of the pronotum; and the Malagasy Litterhopper ( ), herein described - which has a high median carina. is known from the rainforests around Tampolo, Manakambahiny, and Mahavelona (Foulpointe). The new taxon, is known only from the Belanono forest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAll eukaryotes have linear chromosomes that are distributed to daughter nuclei during mitotic division, but the ancestral state of nuclear division in the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) is so far unresolved. To address this issue, we have employed ancestral state reconstructions for mitotic states that can be found across the eukaryotic tree concerning the intactness of the nuclear envelope during mitosis (open or closed), the position of spindles (intranuclear or extranuclear), and the symmetry of spindles being either axial (orthomitosis) or bilateral (pleuromitosis). The data indicate that the LECA possessed closed orthomitosis with intranuclear spindles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTwo main theories have been put forward to explain the origin of mitochondria in eukaryotes: phagotrophic engulfment (undigested food) and microbial symbiosis (physiological interactions). The two theories generate mutually exclusive predictions about the order in which mitochondria and phagocytosis arose. To discriminate the alternatives, we have employed ancestral state reconstructions (ASR) for phagocytosis as a trait, phagotrophy as a feeding habit, the presence of mitochondria, the presence of plastids, and the multinucleated organization across major eukaryotic lineages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA new species of the Yellow Sally genus ( Banks, 1906) is described, based on morphological (males and females adults, larval and egg) and molecular (the barcode region of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene ()) features. Popijač's Yellow Sally, Hlebec & Sivec, inhabits two karstic sources of the Krasulja rivulet in Croatia. Male and female of the new species are characterised by colouration patterns of the head and pronotum; the dimensions of the female subgenital plate; the medial penial armature and oval-shaped egg without collar and anchor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe genus Phaesticus Uvarov, 1940 is revised here with updated generic characteristics and a key to the species. New synonyms and a new combination are proposed: 1) Phaesticus Uvarov, 1940 = Flatocerus Liang Zheng, 1984 syn. nov.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Formidable Pygmy Grasshopper, Günther, 1974 (Tetrigidae: 'Malagasy Metrodorinae'), is certainly a stunning, extraordinary insect. Despite the fact that the species was described almost 50 years ago, its beauty had remained completely hidden until recently. The bright yellow colouration of the minute warts on its dorsal hump and even brighter purple-yellowish colouration of its abdomen have been, tragically, completely lost in museum specimens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFModern accounts of eukaryogenesis entail an endosymbiotic encounter between an archaeal host and a proteobacterial endosymbiont, with subsequent evolution giving rise to a unicell possessing a single nucleus and mitochondria. The mononucleate state of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) is seldom, if ever, questioned, even though cells harboring multiple (syncytia, coenocytes, and polykaryons) are surprisingly common across eukaryotic supergroups. Here, we present a survey of multinucleated forms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA new peculiar, spiky, and yellowish species of the genus Tegotettix Hancock, 1913 is described from the Davao region of the island of Mindanao (the Philippines)-T. derijei sp. n.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe last eukaryote common ancestor (LECA) possessed mitochondria and all key traits that make eukaryotic cells more complex than their prokaryotic ancestors, yet the timing of mitochondrial acquisition and the role of mitochondria in the origin of eukaryote complexity remain debated. Here, we report evidence from gene duplications in LECA indicating an early origin of mitochondria. Among 163,545 duplications in 24,571 gene trees spanning 150 sequenced eukaryotic genomes, we identify 713 gene duplication events that occurred in LECA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWide nosed pygmy grasshoppers (Tetrigidae: Cladonotinae) are grasshoppers in which the frontal costa bifurcates into strongly divergent facial carinae, between which there is wide scutellum. Altogether seven genera and thirteen species inhabit India and Sri Lanka. Tribe Cladonotini is represented in this region by five genera and nine species (Cladonotus-4 spp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe paper describes a new species of a Sri Lankan twighopper, genus Cladonotus Saussure, 1862 (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae: Cladonotini), C. bhaskari sp. n.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMadagascar is home to some of the largest and most colorful pygmy grasshoppers (Tetrigidae) in the world, known as 'Malagasy Metrodorinae'. Among them, Devil's pygmy grasshoppers (genus Bolívar, 1887) are unique in having two long spines on the back, which are modified internal lateral pronotal carinae. The genus was composed of two species - (Serville, 1838) and Rehn, 1929 , but here it is evidenced that the latter represents a junior synonym of the former.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKnowledge on the pygmy grasshoppers of Australia is, despite the numerous endemics being described from this unique continent, still scarce. Of interest is the genus group, including genera Storozhenko, 2019, Storozhenko, 2019, Storozhenko, 2019 and Sjöstedt, 1921. The systematic position of this group, currently assigned to Batrachideinae (Bufonidini), is probably not correct.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHvar Saw Bush-cricket Harz, 1965 (Phaneropterinae: Barbitistini) and Lesina Bush-cricket Brunner von Wattenwyl in Herman 1874 (Tettigoniinae: Platycleidini) are flightless orthopterans restricted to a narrow area in the Mediterranean part of Croatia, both originally described from Hvar Island. In this study, all available information on these two interesting species is presented: data on morphology, bioacoustics, distribution, habitat, and a key to identification of the species belonging to genera and in Croatia. The songs of both and are described here for the first time, with the former one being the second known example of a synchronising and presumably duetting species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA new genus and species of pygmy grasshopper (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae) is described from Eocene Baltic amber. Danatettix hoffeinsorum gen. et sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere are numerous pygmy grasshoppers (Tetrigidae) that exhibit leaf-like appearance. Leaf-mimic species can be found mainly in the subfamily Cladonotinae (tribes Cladonotini, Xerophyllini). Two leaf-mimic pygmy grasshopper species found in India, Pakistan (Oxyphyllum pennatum Hancock, 1909) and Borneo (Paraphyllum antennatum Hancock, 1913) are the only macropterous leaf-like species of Asia and were traditionally assigned to subfamily Cladonotinae.
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