Estudo taxonômico das espécies sul-americanas de Bucrates Burmeister, 1838 (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Conocephalinae)

Abstract

Bucrates Burmeister, 1838 is a genus of Conocephaloid katydids which all five species within the genus are recorded only to the New World. The species traditionally known were Bucrates capitatus (De Geer, 1773), Bucrates clausus (Scudder, 1878), Bucrates malivolans (Scudder, 1878), Bucrates lanista Rehn, 1918 and Bucrates weissmani Walker, 2014. Most of the descriptions are old and poor in characters, which does not effectively separate the species within the genus, once almost all species were described based only on one or two exemplars. The species within Bucrates are polymorphic, and two or more variations can be found in the same population, which increases the need for a more exhaustive taxonomic study. The species of the monotypic genus Parabucrates Scudder, 1897, Parabucrates brevicauda (Scudder, 1869) was included in this study due to extreme similarity of male genitalia with some species within Bucrates. Other species within Bucrates have male genitalia similar to other closely related genera, which indicates the need of a redescription of the genus, in order to define satisfactorily the characteristics that define Bucrates and its members. This taxonomic study was based on 164 specimens prevenient from depository collections and excursions. The specimens are from Colombia and at least one state of which Brazilian region. Parabucrates brevicauda (Scudder, 1869) was reallocated as Bucrates brevicauda (Scudder, 1869) comb. nov. and Parabucrates was synonymized to Bucrates. The male of B. lanista was described for the first time, as well as a new species for the genus. In addition, a new genus was proposed to allocate the species Gen. nov. clausus (Scudder, 1878) comb. nov.. The distribution of all South-American species was expanded.