Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 57. (Budapest 1965)
Slater, J. A. ; Ahmad, I.: A contribution to the classification of Blissinae: the genera Riggiella and Bochrus (Heteroptera: Lygaeidae)
ANNALES HISTORIGO-NATU RALES MüSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARIGI Tomus 57. PARS ZOOLOGIGA 1965 A Contribution to the Classification of Blissinae : the Genera Riggiella and Bochrus (Heteroptera : Lygaeidae)* By J. A. SLATER and IMTIAZ AHMAD, Storrs** During the course of revisional work on the Lygaeid subfamily Blissinae we have had occassion to review the systematics of these two genera of broad flattened blissines, the results of which are indicated below. Riggiella KORMILEV Riggiella KORMILEV 1949, Ann. Mag. Arg. Cien. Nat. (Zool.) 1:(11): 4-6. The genus Riggiella was described by KORMILEV (1949) for a single new species vianai described from Argentina and Paraguay. KORMILEV suggested relationship to the oriental genus Spalacocoris and the neotropical Patritius. Actually Riggiella is much more closely related to the oriental genus Bochrus than to either of these genera. Indeed, Bochrus and Riggiella have a surprising number of features in common and while some of these may well be convergence phenomena it seems highly unlikely that all could be so. The evident relationship of these two genera — one restricted to South America, the other to the orient — is of great Zoogeographie interest, the significance of which we will discuss later in a more general paper dealing with the phylogeny and zoogeography of the Blissinae. Riggiella and Bochrus have the following characteristics in common : a) A short, broad, non-declivent head with the eyes small, rounded and set on short thick lateral head extensions, b) Body extremely broad and greatly flattened, c) Pronotum shining, nearly glabrous with the lateral margin curving antero-mesad from humeral angle to anterior margin in a broad smooth arc, quite distinct from the condition in most other Blissinae, d) Clavus narrowed toward the base, the margin adjacent to the scutellum sinuate rather than straight, e) Scutellum with a broad shining glabrous triangular caudo-median area with the adjacent basal and lateral areas dull gray, f) Hemelytra with corium and membrane little differentiated in texture, the latter opaque, g) Corium with a narrow, smooth, glabrous shining stripe running longitudinally near lateral margin in area of radial vein and contrasting strongly with the dull texture of the remainder of the hemelytron, h) All femora bearing series of short acute spines on the ventral surface, i) Scent gland orifices elongate linear with a single open groove extending nearly to the margin of the surrounding, raised and rugulose area (Figs. 11—12), j) Abdominal venter with a pair of large * This work was carried out with the assistance of a grant in aid from the National Science Foundation of the United States of America. ** Department of Zoologv and Entomologv, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, U.S.A.
