Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 October 2021 | 13(12): 19824–19830
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN
0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.7124.13.12.19824-19830
#7124 | Received 25 January 2021
| Final received 20 September 2021 | Finally accepted 29 September 2021
First report of Scipinia
horrida (Stål) (Heteroptera: Reduviidae) from
Assam, with comments on related genus Irantha Stål
Anjana Singha Naorem 1, Santana Saikia 2, Anandita Buragohain 3, Rubina Azmeera
Begum 4,
Swapnil S. Boyane 5 & Hemant V.
Ghate 6
1–4 Department of Zoology, Cotton
University, Panbazar, Guwahati, Assam 781001, India.
5,6 Post-Graduate Research Centre,
Department of Zoology, Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce
(Autonomous), Shivajinagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411005, India.
5 Present Address: Ashoka Trust for
Research in Ecology and the Environment, Royal Enclave, Srirampura,
Jakkur, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560064, India.
1 anjanasingha@cottonuniversity.ac.in,
2 santanasaikia7@gmail.com, 3 anagohain30@gmail.com, 4
begumrubinaazmeera@gmail.com, 5 boyane.swapnil@gmail.com, 6
hemantghate@gmail.com (corresponding author)
Editor: Helcio R. Gil-Santana, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Date of publication: 26 October
2021 (online & print)
Citation: Naorem,
A.S., S. Saikia, A. Buragohain,
R.A. Begum, S.S. Boyane & H.V. Ghate (2021). First report of Scipinia horrida (Stål) (Heteroptera: Reduviidae) from
Assam, with comments on related genus Irantha Stål. Journal of Threatened Taxa 13(12): 19824–19830. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.7124.13.12.19824-19830
Copyright: © Naorem et al. 2021. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows
unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium
by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: Department of Biotechnology,
India. Project No. BT/IN/Indo-US/Foldscope/39/2015.
Competing interests: The authors declare no
competing interests.
Acknowledgements: Authors are thankful
to the Department of Biotechnology, India for all the financial support under
the project BT/IN/Indo-US/Foldscope/39/2015. S. Boyane
would like to express gratitude to the Department of Biotechnology (Govt. of
India) for financial support provided via a major research project on
“Bio-resource and Sustainable livelihoods in North East India
(BT/01/17/NE/TAX). A.S. Naorem is also thankful to Cotton University authorities
for all the institutional support and facilities. We gratefully acknowledge Gunvi Lindberg and Swedish Museum of Natural History,
Stockholm, Sweden, for providing images of the type of Irantha
and for permission to use those (Attribution: CC BY-NC 3.0). H.V. Ghate is
indebted to the authorities of Modern College for facilities and encouragement.
Abstract: Presence of reduviid
bugs Scipinia horrida
(Stål, 1861) and Irantha
sp., belonging to the family Reduviidae and subfamily
Harpactorinae, is reported here for the first time
from Guwahati, Assam. We provide images and comparative comments on these two
bugs.
Keywords: Assassin bugs, Harpactorinae, Iranthini.
Four specimens of small reduviid bugs collected in Guwahati (Assam,
India) were identified as Scipinia horrida (Stål, 1859) (three
specimens) and Irantha sp. (one specimen)
based on keys in Distant (1904). Distant (1904) had placed these two genera
under ‘division’ Polididusaria (= Polididini
Distant, 1904) stating that ‘In this division the anterior femora are
granulate, generally nodose or nodulose, and always
spinous’. The genus Irantha Stål, 1861 was separated from closely related genus Scipinia Stål, 1861 on the
basis of the length of the first two visible segments of labium. Thus the first
joint of labium is longer than second in Irantha
while the first and second joints are subequal in Scipinia.
Maldonado-Capriles (1990) included eight
species under Scipinia in the Catalogue, of
which only one, namely S. horrida is known
from India. Huang et al. (2007) reviewed Scipinia
and described one new species from China, thus the total number of species
under this genus stands at nine. Ambrose (2006) listed S. horrida and stated its distribution as: China, India,
Indonesia (Java), Myanmar, Philippines, and Sri Lanka; this list also included
names of places from southern India and Calcutta (=Kolkata). Huang et al.
(2007) also listed Sikkim as another locality along with several places from
China. Apparently, S. horrida has not so far
been recorded from Assam. Originally
described as Sinea horrida
Stål, 1859, the species was then transferred to the
genus Scipinia Stål,
1861 of which it is the type species (Maldonado-Capriles
1990).
Three species of Irantha are
known from India: (i) I. armipes
(Stål, 1855), (ii) I. consobrina
Distant, 1904, and (iii) I. pepparai
Livingstone & Ravichandran, 1988; all these three species have been
recorded from southern India (Ambrose 2006). We are, however, not aware of any Irantha recorded from Assam. Irantha armipes was
originally described as Harpactor armipes by Stål (1855) and is
the type species of the genus Irantha Stål, 1861; only three species were listed by Maldonado-Capriles (1990) (namely I. armipes,
I. consobrina, and I. bramarbas Breddin, 1903)
without reference to I. pepparai. Chen et al.
(2005) described a new species of Irantha from
China, Irantha nigrina
Chen, Zhao & Cai, 2005 which then becomes the fifth species under this
genus.
Both, S. horrida and Irantha sp. belong to the subfamily Harpactorinae, the largest subfamily of Reduviidae,
with over 2,800 described species under 320 genera (Weirauch
et al. 2014). Most of the members of
this family are predators and play an important role in the ecosystem.
The genera Scipinia and Irantha, and the included species Scipinia horrida as
well as Irantha armipes,
have been redescribed in detail with several
illustrations (see Chen et al. 2005; Huang et al. 2007), so here we are only
giving brief comments and photographic illustrations of the two species.
Comparative images of both these species are given here. The specimen of Irantha was collected in a spider web and because
the genital region was damaged, we are treating that as Irantha
sp. close to I. armipes. We are also providing
some images of the type specimen of I. armipes, preserved
in the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden
(NHRS). In the recent work Zhao (2008) placed Irantha and Scipinia under the new tribe
Iranthini.
Methods
Scipinia specimens were collected from pigeon pea
plantation of Horticulture Research Station, Guwahati, by hand
picking method, killed with ethyl
acetate and preserved in ethanol. For Irantha sp., a single damaged
individual was found dead in a spider web. Specimens were studied under the
Leica stereozoom (MZ6) and photographs were taken with
an attached Canon PowerShot S50 camera. Several images of the bugs were
stacked using Combine ZM
software and the images were processed
with Adobe Photoshop CS5. Measurements
were done with Erma stage and ocular micrometre. For the preparation of male genitalia, the pygophore was
separated from body by dipping
the abdomen in hot KOH for
3–5 minutes and the insect was briefly
rinsed with 5% acetic acid, washed
in 70 % alcohol and dry mounted subsequently.
Different views of pygophore were
first photographed and then the
phallus was removed after treating
the pygophore in hot KOH further for 5 minutes. Pygophore and phallus were
photographed under Leica as mentioned above.
Material examined: Scipinia horrida
two males, one female; Irantha sp. one male (abdomen damaged). Both species were collected in Assam (Assam Insects nos. 16 to 18 (Scipinia), Assam Insects
no. 19 (Irantha)). Specimens
are currently preserved in Modern College, Pune.
Taxonomy
Reduviidae Latreille,
1807
Harpactorinae Amyot
& Audinet-Serville, 1843.
Iranthini Zhao, 2008
Scipinia Stål, 1861 (type species Sinea horrida Stål, 1859)
Scipinia horrida (Stål, 1859)
For various other synonyms, please refer to Maldonado-Capriles (1990).
Brief description: Total length: Male 11
mm, female 11.5 mm. Colour and vestiture: Body mostly ochraceous; dorsally a narrow
median region of anteocular and major postocular region of head, very narrow median region of
anterior lobe of pronotum, lateral
margins of scutellum, clavus and membrane of hemelytra, thoracic sterna,
especially mesosternum, dark brown; lateral area of
abdomen with blackish patches in basal half; legs with femora
reddish-ochraceous, tibia and tarsi dark brown. Whole body covered with small, adpressed, yellowish setae and some scattered, long, transluscent setae, which are more numerous and conspicuous
on legs (Image 1A); head and thoracic region densely pubescent on ventral side
(Image 1C,F).
Structure: Head cylindrical; anteocular
slightly shorter than postocular (much shorter than postocular if neck is included); deep transverse sulcus at
level of eyes as seen laterally. Head dorsally bears three pairs of long
spines: one pair near antennal base, one above eyes and one behind eyes, along
with many (about 10 pairs) small spines in between long spines as well as in
posterior part of head. Eyes globular, with its inferior margin not reaching
ventral margin of head; ocelli widely separated and also far from eyes,
situated near base of third spine on head (Image 1B,D). Antennae four
segmented, first antennomere longest, remaining subequal. Labium with first
visible segment slightly longer than visible segment II, visible segment III
smallest. Thorax with pronotum almost hexagonal in shape, broadest in middle
with angular humeral angles, narrowed at anterior and posterior margins,
anterior margin straight, posterior margin strongly sinuate over scutellum;
pronotum divided into small anterior and large posterior lobe; anterior lobe
with many blunt tubercular spines and two pairs of large spines, posterior pair
with Y shaped or bifurcate spines (Image 2A); posterior lobe strongly rugulose with beehive like pattern of deep punctures (Image
1E). Scutellum is very small and triangular. Abdomen, in case of
male, is slim and slender, with almost triangular visible part of pygophore, in ventral view (Image 2B); in case of female,
abdomen is dilated in fourth and fifth segment.
Legs with fore femur moderately incrassate, with numerous pale
tubercles, armed with whorls of fine spines, one dorsoapical
spine longest, projected outwardly (Image 1A,G); tibia thin and slightly curved
inward in distal one third, with many small tubercles ventrally and an apical
large and triangular tubercle; tarsus three segmented, claws relatively long.
Mid- and hind legs with some long spine like setae, femora slightly nodulose; mid legs shortest. Hemelytra pass beyond tip of
abdomen.
Pygophore elongate oval, as shown here in dorsal, ventral and lateral views
(Image 2C–E); parameres absent. Phallus in dorsal and
ventral view is also illustrated (Image 2F,G).
Distribution: India: (Andaman &
Nicobar Islands (South Andaman), Sikkim, Tripura, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and
West Bengal, Meghalaya), China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, and Sri Lanka
(Distant 1904, Ambrose 2006, Bhagyasree 2018, Huang
et al. 2007, Mukherjee & Hassan 2016)
Irantha Stål,
1861
Type species by monotypy: Harpactor
armipes Stål, 1855.
For various other synonyms of Irantha
armipes, refer to Maldonado-Capriles
(1990).
Specimen examined: Irantha sp. close to
I. armipes (Stål,
1855) (total length: 12 mm, male).
Comments: Irantha
sp. illustrated here has deceptively similar appearance to Scipinia
horrida, what could possibly lead to a
misidentification. However, careful observations revealed the following
significant differences or diagnostic characters.
Irantha has longer neck like region than Scipinia;
fore femur in Irantha is with many long and
strong spines (Image 3A), in Scipinia fore
femur is with many small and only one long subapical spine (Image 1G); first
visible labial segment is distinctly longer than second in Irantha
(Image 3D) and it is only slightly longer than second in Scipinia
(Image 1C,D); pronotal humeral angles are sharp
in Irantha (Image 3B) but are slightly
blunt in Scipinia (Image 1E); in Scipinia the spines on dorsal side of head and pronotum are strong and long and the
long spines in posterior pair of pronotum are bifurcate at tip (Image 2A) while
in Irantha the spines on head and pronotum are
small and none is bifurcate at tip (Image 3C).
Abdomen is broadly similar but comparative images are not given as it is
damaged in this specimen of Irantha.
Image 4 includes the dorsal (4A), ventral (4B) and lateral (4C) views of
the syntype of Irantha armipes
preserved in The Swedish Museum of Natural History, along with its labels
(4D). The characters of this species are clearly observed in this
well-preserved specimen studied by C. Stål. The
lateral view shows the characters of spines on head and pronotum, labial
segments and the nodulose and spiny fore femora very
well.
Distribution: Irantha
armipes is known from India (Karnataka and
several localities in southern India), Sri Lanka, and Nepal (Ambrose 2006, Bhagyasree 2018 checklist) but apparently it is so far not
recorded from Assam.
Discussion
The two genera Irantha and Scipinia are closely related to each other and have
similar body form and genital structure and may be synonymized in future, as
sometimes it is difficult to assign the related species (Huang et al. 2007). We
hope that the illustrations provided here will help to easily distinguish these
two species found in India. Chen et al. (2005) have listed other related genera
and commented on their narrow distribution while Huang et al. (2007) also
pointed out that all species of Irantha are
distributed only in the Oriental and Australasian Regions.
Das & Ambrose (2007) studied bionomics of I. armipes
(from specimens collected in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu) and gave several
illustrations of adult and nymphal morphology. Das et
al. (2010) studied predation of Helicoverpa by
Scipinia, however, information about the
bionomics of S. horrida is still unknown.
The distribution records of most insects found in India are rather poor;
detailed, well-illustrated redescriptions of most
species are also necessary as their identification is still problematic (Ghate 2013). Correct identification helps to authentically
add to the record of distribution and also to the study of comparative aspects
of bionomics or phylogeny.
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