January 16, 2021

Three new species of cicadas from Meghalaya, India

Three new species of cicadas have been discovered in Meghalaya, India:
Mata meghalayana, Mata lenonia, and Mata ruffordii.

Mata cicadas Vivek Sarkar
Photo courtesy of Vivek Sarkar.

Access the paper on Research Gate or Zootaxa Vol 4908, No 1.

Paper title: Description of three new species of the genus Mata Distant, 1906 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Cicadinae: Oncotympanini) with notes on their natural history from the Indian state of Meghalaya, India

Authors: Vivek Sarkar, Cuckoo Mahapatra, Pratyush P. Mohapatra, Manoj V. Nair, Krushnamegh Kunte

Abstract: “Three new species of the Asian genus Mata Distant, 1906 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) viz. Mata lenonia sp.nov.; Mata ruffordii sp.nov. and Mata meghalayana sp.nov. are described from the Indian state of Meghalaya. Keys and taxonomic descriptions of these species are provided with detailed accounts of their natural history and acoustics.”

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November 6, 2018

Mata kama (Distant, 1881)

Mata kama (Distant, 1881) is a cicada found in India, Malaysia and likely the lands in-between.

Scientific classification:
Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Oncotympanini
SubTribe: ?
Genus: Mata
Species: Mata kama (Distant, 1881)

Mata genus description by W. L. Distant:

Characters. — Head (including eyes) about as wide as base of mesonotum, distinctly shorter than space between eyes; pronotum shorter than mesonotum, its lateral margins a little convex, sinuate before the posterior lateral angles, which are moderately lobately produced ; abdomen in male short, about as long as space between apex of head and base of cruciform elevation ; tympanal orifices completely covered, tympanal coverings with their outer margins sinuate, the posterior angles only projecting beyond the lateral margins of the abdomen; metasternum prolonged in a broad, oblong, laminate process between the opercula, which are short, transverse, and not extending beyond the base of abdomen, their lateral margins visible from above; rostrum reaching the posterior coxae; anterior femora spined beneath; tegmina and wings hyaline, the first maculate; tegmina very long and narrow, more than three times longer than broad, with eight apical areas and the basal cell longer than broad; wings with six apical areas.

References:

The illustration and genus description comes from the journal Genera Insectorum, and a specific article from 1913 by W. L. Distant titled Homoptera. Fam. Cicadidae, Subfam, Cicadinae. Read it on the Biodiversity Heritage Library website.
Current species name verified using Allen Sanborn’s Catalogue of the Cicadoidea (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha).
Tribe information comes from: MARSHALL, DAVID C. et al.A molecular phylogeny of the cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) with a review of tribe and subfamily classification.Zootaxa, [S.l.], v. 4424, n. 1, p. 1—64, may 2018. ISSN 1175-5334. Available at: https://www.biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.4424.1.1

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