Categories
Cameroon CAR DRC Ferdinand Karsch Genera Insectorum Muansa Nigeria Platypleurini Zaire

Muansa clypealis (Karsch, 1890)

Muansa clypealis (Karsch, 1890) is a visually amazing cicada, with a remarkable angular pronotal collar and almost butterfly-like wing inclusions. It is found in Sub-Saharan Africa/West Africa, including the countries Cameroon, The Central African Republic, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Zaire.

Scientific classification:
Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Platypleurini
Genus: Muansa
Species: Muansa clypealis (Karsch, 1890)

Muansa clypealis (Karsch, 1890)

A Muansa Distant genus description by W. L. Distant:

Characters. — Head (including eyes) slightly wider than base of mesonotum, not truncate anteriorly, but frontally produced, about as long as pronotum (excluding its posterior margin); pronotum transverse, its posterior margin little more than half the length of vertex, the lateral margins strongly and angularly produced, angular apices reaching to about middle of basal cell of tegmina; mesonotum a little longer than pronotum; anterior femora with one or more distinct spines, posterior tibiae with a few slender spines on apical areas; metasternum elevated and centrally sulcated ; tympana practically covered; opercula short, broad, their apices more or less convexly rounded; rostrum reaching the posterior coxae; tegmina with the basal cell broad, ulnar veins well separated at their bases

References:

  1. 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.
  2. Species name information/verification comes from Allen Sanborn’s Catalogue of the Cicadoidea (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha).