Alcmeone robustus (Hemiptera: Membracidae: Darninae): description of the last-instar nymph and biological notes

Abstract

In his treatment of the Smiliinae, BUTLER (1877), described several species of Ceresa Amyot & Serville, 1843. In their description of C. robusta, based on a female specimen, the authors pointed that "... the form of the pronotum differs considerably from all described species". Despite this comment, the taxonomic position of C. robusta was maintained until recently, when ANDRADE (1999), upon examining the type specimen in the collection of The Natural History Museum (BMNH), London, concluded that it actually belongs in Darninae. He then transferred it to Alcmeone Stål, 1876, and the species name became A. robusta (Butler, 1877). He also discovered that A. sinuata, described by FONSECA & DIRINGSHOFEN (1974) from a single male, was a junior synonym with A. robusta. MCKAMEY (1998) catalogued 10 valid species in Alcmeone Stål, but the immature stages, biology and behavior of the species of the group have not been documented in the literature. In the present paper, we describe the last-instar nymph of Alcmeone robustus (Butler, 1877) (corrected spelling for the species-group name), and provide some biological/behavioral notes on the species, including observations on the newly emerged adult males and females.

Immatures of the New World treehopper tribe Amastrini (Hemiptera, Membracidae, Smiliinae) with a key to genera

“…More recently, Godoy et al (2006) provided images of immatures of many Neotropical genera, and Strümpel and Strümpel (2014) illustrated nymphs of a few Enchenopa and Enchophyllum species. Lencioni-Neto and Sakakibara (2013) described the immature of Alcmeone Stål (Darninae). The immatures of the unusual Antillean endemic genera Antillotolania Ramos and Deiroderes Ramos have also been described (McKamey and Brodbeck 2013).…”