A new species of the genusBeameria(Hemiptera: Cicadidae) from North America

Abstract

Cicadas of the genus Beameria Davis are small, grass dwelling species found across much of western North America. We provide the first detailed description of the genus and describe the new species Beameria ansercollis sp. nov. Sanborn and M. Heath with this work. The morphology, biogeography, song parameters and thermal tolerances of the new and known species of Beameria are described and comparisons between the species are made. There are significant statistical differences in morphology, song parameters and thermal tolerances between the species of the genus. The biogeography of all species is illustrated. A key to the species of Beameria is provided.

The genusPacarinaDistant, 1905 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) with the description of a new species

“…Both species call from within their host plant species where the thermal microenvironment is protected from temperature extremes. The absolute values are similar to other species found in the same environments (Heath 1972;Sanborn and Phillips 1996, 2010, 2011Sanborn 2004;Heath and Sanborn 2007;Sanborn et al 2011aSanborn et al , 2011b.…”

Biogeography of the Cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) of North America, North of Mexico

“…All species of Beameria are associated with grasses [23,36,56,80]. Beameria venosa has the greatest distribution being found throughout much of 11 states and Mexico ( Figure 27).…”

“…The genus Beameria was erected for two species of grass dwelling cicadas of the central and western United States [26] with a third species being described recently [23]. The genus is primarily found in North America, north of Mexico but two of the three species have been reported from Mexico [6,8].…”

“…The biogeography of individual species has been investigated as part of studies on the biology of specific taxa [19,23,24,[27][28][29][30][31][32] but a complete review of the biogeography of the North American cicadas has not been produced. The distributions of cicadas for a limited number of states have been published but more recent analyses have adding to the often dated and incomplete cicada diversity within those states [21,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50].…”