If you haven't seen the first season of Westworld, that may be a (rather major) spoiler, so sorry for that. Equally, if you would rather receive pictures of insects without tangential pop-culture discussion, sorry for that, too.
Back on topic, and today's insect is a Tessarotomid shield bug. The shield bugs, by the way, comprise the Pentatomoidea, a globally important group of predators, innocuous herbivores, hugely destructive pests (Nezara and friends) and seasonal delicacies (C.M. Dzerefos writes quite regularly about a Tessaratomid treat) that I have, until now, entirely neglected.
Before I blether too much, here it (he, unless I'm mistaken) is:
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| Chongwe Distr., Lusaka, Zambia; 03 June 2018, taken with Olympus E-450 and 3 KOOD magnifiers. |
Although I was aware of their existence, having never come across one before the little green gentleman above showed up in my garden, I had come to unconsciously think of them as one of those bizarre groups of interesting looking insects that the South Africans see, but aren't really present in Zambia, so as you might imagine, I could not immediately say exactly who I was looking at. Fortunately, help was at hand.
In his unavoidably fantastic 2009 database of African Pentatomoidea (if, like me, you are on limited internet, do consider signing onto someone else's before you click that link, as it takes you directly to the .pdf), Robertson lists a paltry 41 species (one of which with two subspecies) of this superfamily from Zambia, which is - considering that even the UK, which as a temperate island should be doubly depauperate, has at least 36 species in the superfamily - more than a bit low. That's not actually surprising - as a nation, Zambia has been more than a little neglected: while our 908 species of butterfly probably more-or-less covers our total, and I've yet to knowingly encounter a species not on that list, our stinkbugs have been tragically overlooked by generations of Hemipterologists**.
Beyond the inevitable undescribed endemics (this is Africa, after all), a more reasonable estimate of our total Pentatomoids is probably in the region of 251 - which is to say, there are 251 species (of which 14 have a second subspecies in the same situation, and 3 have a third for 268 total forms) of shield bug that have either been previously recorded in Zambia, or are recorded in such a combination of countries that they most likely also occur in a significant part of Zambia, based on Robertson's database. A further 18 species and 2 subspecies occur in multiple countries on either side of Zambia, but are either patchily distributed in well-trafficked countries (i.e., one or more recorded countries may not be native range, but inadvertent introductions through shipping, etc) or despite their "per-country" range seeming to suggest that they should occur in Zambia, have a distribution which could correspond with habitat types not present in Zambia (e.g. species recorded in a continuous band of coastal nations and no landlocked countries).
I don't really need to go on about all that, though - in fact, if I hadn't only finished going through said database this morning, I could probably have gotten straight to the point that Robertson's list has a solitary species in Zambia, Natalicola delegorguei Spinola, 1850 (link is to Stål's type of synonym Gonielytrum curculiventre) - not the same species as the Encosternum delegorguei Spinola, 1850 that Dzerefos writes about - and six species probably in Zambia. After casting about the web for a possible way to work out precisely who I was looking at without having to either drive into town or, of all things, ask someone else, I came to the conclusion that just to access the papers which might help me identify it, I'd have to shell out over a hundred dollars in either direct-access fees or subscriptions, and was entirely ready to give up.
But then something magical happened. Retreating from journals who think it's fair to charge 25 USD a pop for papers that came out fifty years ago without even letting me see the abstract, I stumbled across Philippe Magnien's Illustrated Catalog of Tessaratomidae, and after a brief getting-to-know-you period, I realised that while his "publications" page did not (unlike some of the other hemiptera databases on the same domain) provide access to much (or any, to be honest) of the listed literature, he had thoughtfully included images of specimens under all but one of the relevant species entries.
As it turns out, Natalicola pallida is structurally quite different from all other contenders; while Piezosternum calidum (Fabricius, 1787), Aplosterna virescens Westwood, 1837 , Selenymenum piriforme Montandon, 1894, Stevisonius acutus Jeannel, 1914, Elizabetha courteauxi Schouteden, 1917, and even Tessaratoma absimilis Distant, 1893 (more on that in a moment) - not to mention Dzerefos' Encosternum delegorguei Spinola, 1850, which Magnien lists as occurring in Gambia as well as Southern Africa, which could possibly suggest a wider range including Zambia - have rather sloping, unpronounced shoulders similar to those seen on Stål's re-described Natalicola delegorguei type, Natalicola pallida has very broad, protruding shoulder pads that threaten to entirely swallow the head and bury the whole insect in a forgotten time when Ridley Scott wasn't making sequels*.
This is easier to see from above:
So that's that.
More or less.
The less, really, comes down to a few disagreements between Robertson's Database and Magnien's catalog: first, the name itself; Robertson consistently uses Natalicola pallidus and Magnien uses Natalicola pallida; these cannot both be correct, but pallida agrees with the gender of Natalicola (i.e., they both end in "a"), so I've tried to use that; conversely, I am inclined to use Robertson's Aplosterna Westwood, 1837 over Magnien's Haplosterna Westwood, 1837; I treat Robertson as more accurate here because they credit Haplosterna to Stål, which explains why wherever Haplosterna virescens is seen, it is followed by a bracketed (Westwood, 1837) - indicating that the binomial is not the one that Westwood described it under. Magnien brackets Westwood for the binomial, but still credits Haplosterna to Westwood, which - unless Westwood used Haplosterna for a different species earlier in the same paper, but described virescens under Aplosterna (not impossible) - doesn't make sense. Next, which may come down the the 9 years between Robertson's work and Magnien's, Robertson records Tessarotoma absimilis from Tanzania only, while Magnien records this species from the entire East Coast, as well as Zambia, which is evidenced in a picture of a specimen from "Kafue City, Kafue River, Lusaka Zambie".
I should be very clear, here. I have quite regularly been to and through a place called Kafue, close to the Kafue River, and while it gets dangerously closer to being a far-flung shanty/suburb of Lusaka City every year, it is by no means itself a city. That is not to say that I'm questioning the record itself, I just feel that it's important to note that for anyone who heads to Kafue expecting to find a city, don't.
A final note should be made that while the link to Natalicola delegorguei Spinola, 1850 takes you to the Swedish Museum of Natural History's image of Stål's type, with the name credited to Spinola, 1852, I've use Robertson's Spinola, 1850 as this appears to be correct
*while I profess to having enjoyed Blade Runner 2029 and, yes, Prometheus (Alien: Covenant, however much potential it may have had, is unforgiveable by virtue of it's killing off Shaw to distance itself from fanboy-hate for Prometheus, and its stupid "Gotcha" ending undermining the otherwise touching Walter/Daniels relationship and setting it up for an Alien 3 level of "well, none of that film mattered" sequel) this is actually a nod to the '80s and shoulder pads. Yes, I know that he made other films between those originals and their sequels.
I don't really need to go on about all that, though - in fact, if I hadn't only finished going through said database this morning, I could probably have gotten straight to the point that Robertson's list has a solitary species in Zambia, Natalicola delegorguei Spinola, 1850 (link is to Stål's type of synonym Gonielytrum curculiventre) - not the same species as the Encosternum delegorguei Spinola, 1850 that Dzerefos writes about - and six species probably in Zambia. After casting about the web for a possible way to work out precisely who I was looking at without having to either drive into town or, of all things, ask someone else, I came to the conclusion that just to access the papers which might help me identify it, I'd have to shell out over a hundred dollars in either direct-access fees or subscriptions, and was entirely ready to give up.
 |
| Even with this face staring at me, I was ready to give up and let the little guy fester away in my hard drive until that imaginary day when I'm going to be obscenely rich enough to afford thousands of subscriptions, back-issues and the postage to Lusaka... |
But then something magical happened. Retreating from journals who think it's fair to charge 25 USD a pop for papers that came out fifty years ago without even letting me see the abstract, I stumbled across Philippe Magnien's Illustrated Catalog of Tessaratomidae, and after a brief getting-to-know-you period, I realised that while his "publications" page did not (unlike some of the other hemiptera databases on the same domain) provide access to much (or any, to be honest) of the listed literature, he had thoughtfully included images of specimens under all but one of the relevant species entries.
As it turns out, Natalicola pallida is structurally quite different from all other contenders; while Piezosternum calidum (Fabricius, 1787), Aplosterna virescens Westwood, 1837 , Selenymenum piriforme Montandon, 1894, Stevisonius acutus Jeannel, 1914, Elizabetha courteauxi Schouteden, 1917, and even Tessaratoma absimilis Distant, 1893 (more on that in a moment) - not to mention Dzerefos' Encosternum delegorguei Spinola, 1850, which Magnien lists as occurring in Gambia as well as Southern Africa, which could possibly suggest a wider range including Zambia - have rather sloping, unpronounced shoulders similar to those seen on Stål's re-described Natalicola delegorguei type, Natalicola pallida has very broad, protruding shoulder pads that threaten to entirely swallow the head and bury the whole insect in a forgotten time when Ridley Scott wasn't making sequels*.
This is easier to see from above:
 |
| Natalicola pallida - same individual, still from Chongwe, but from a better angle to see the form of the pronotum. |
So that's that.
More or less.
The less, really, comes down to a few disagreements between Robertson's Database and Magnien's catalog: first, the name itself; Robertson consistently uses Natalicola pallidus and Magnien uses Natalicola pallida; these cannot both be correct, but pallida agrees with the gender of Natalicola (i.e., they both end in "a"), so I've tried to use that; conversely, I am inclined to use Robertson's Aplosterna Westwood, 1837 over Magnien's Haplosterna Westwood, 1837; I treat Robertson as more accurate here because they credit Haplosterna to Stål, which explains why wherever Haplosterna virescens is seen, it is followed by a bracketed (Westwood, 1837) - indicating that the binomial is not the one that Westwood described it under. Magnien brackets Westwood for the binomial, but still credits Haplosterna to Westwood, which - unless Westwood used Haplosterna for a different species earlier in the same paper, but described virescens under Aplosterna (not impossible) - doesn't make sense. Next, which may come down the the 9 years between Robertson's work and Magnien's, Robertson records Tessarotoma absimilis from Tanzania only, while Magnien records this species from the entire East Coast, as well as Zambia, which is evidenced in a picture of a specimen from "Kafue City, Kafue River, Lusaka Zambie".
I should be very clear, here. I have quite regularly been to and through a place called Kafue, close to the Kafue River, and while it gets dangerously closer to being a far-flung shanty/suburb of Lusaka City every year, it is by no means itself a city. That is not to say that I'm questioning the record itself, I just feel that it's important to note that for anyone who heads to Kafue expecting to find a city, don't.
A final note should be made that while the link to Natalicola delegorguei Spinola, 1850 takes you to the Swedish Museum of Natural History's image of Stål's type, with the name credited to Spinola, 1852, I've use Robertson's Spinola, 1850 as this appears to be correct
*while I profess to having enjoyed Blade Runner 2029 and, yes, Prometheus (Alien: Covenant, however much potential it may have had, is unforgiveable by virtue of it's killing off Shaw to distance itself from fanboy-hate for Prometheus, and its stupid "Gotcha" ending undermining the otherwise touching Walter/Daniels relationship and setting it up for an Alien 3 level of "well, none of that film mattered" sequel) this is actually a nod to the '80s and shoulder pads. Yes, I know that he made other films between those originals and their sequels.
**which should be a word, because Hemipterology is, and while the general preference is for Hemipterist, I've never met anyone who described themself as a Bioist, Zooist or Entomists; terms like Lepidopterist, Orthopterist and Hemipterist imply fanciers or enthusiasts (which, in fairness, is true for a lot of Lepidopterists), along the lines of Philatelists and Racists, rather than studiers-of.
