A New Tingid from New Zealand (Hemiptera)

By Carl J. Drake,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

The genus Tanybyrsa Drake (1942, Iowa St. Col Jr. Sci. 17 (1): 21) was founded to hold Compseuta amplicata Hacker and C. secunda Hacker from Australia. The present paper describes a new species of Tanybyrsa from New Zealand. Heretofore the genus was recorded only from the Australian mainland. I am indebted to Dr. T. E. Woodward, of Brisbane, for kindly sending me this species and many other tingids for study.

Tanybyrsa cumberi n. sp. (Fig. 1)

Large, subquadrate, testaceous, head brown with pale testaceous spines, pronotum brown with veinlets of hood and posterior process largely blackish fuscous, elytra with subbasal cross-band and veinlets of discoidal and basal half of subcostal areas largely blackish fuscous, appendages pale testaceous, body beneath with sterna dark brown, the venter mostly blackish fuscous. Length, 3.20 mm; width, 2.10 mm (across widest part).

Head fairly short, armed with five long, suberect spines; bucculae wide, areolate, closed in front, not extending beyond apex of head. Labium dark brown, reaching almost to end

of sulcus; laminae testaceous, open behind. Antennae quite slender, indistinctly pubescent, measurements: I, 9; II, 6; III, 94; IV, 30. Legs long, slender, almost without pubescence.

Pronotum very little convex, punctate, tricarinate; median carina moderately elevated, uniseriate; lateral carinae equally elevated, not higher than median, long, uniseriate, terminating near hood; posterior process areolate, rather broadly rounded behind; hood moderately large, tectiform, highest in front; paranota moderately wide, scarcely turned upward, biseriate, with outer margins jointly broadly rounded.

Elytra very wide, much wider and much longer than abdomen, subquadrate in outline, with apices separated in repose; costal area very wide, composed of large areolae, five areolae deep in widest part; subcostal area wide, four areolae deep in widest part; discoidal area not quite extending to middle of elytra, with outer boundary jointly raised with subcosta so as to form a small tumid area on each elytron; five areolae deep in widest part; sutural area large, with areolae as large as in costal area.

Holotype (male), Arapae, Te Kuiti-Tawaro Range, Waitomo County, New Zealand, 24.1.1957, R. A. Cumber. The type is figured.

Separated at once from T. amplicata (Hacker) and T. secunda (Hacker) by its broader form, indistinctly pubescent antennae, larger hood, less elevated carinae, shorter and broader apex of hind pronotal process, non-reflexed paranota, slightly tumid elevations of elytra and much wider costal area. The type is in the Collections of the Entomology Division, D.S.I.R., Nelson.

Dr. Carl J. Drake,

Entomology Division,
Smithsonian Institution,
U.S. National Museum,
Washington 25 D.C.,
U.S.A.