Anacroneuria annulicauda ( Pictet, 1841 )

Gastaldo, Rodrigo Braga, Salles, Frederico Falcão & Almeida, Lucas Henrique De, 2025, Taxonomic notes on Anacroneuria Klapálek, 1909 (Plecoptera: Perlidae) types of the Museum of Natural History of Berlin - Museum für Naturkunde des Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, Zootaxa 5659 (3), pp. 444-448 : 444-446

Anacroneuria annulicauda ( Pictet, 1841)

Figure 1A–C

Perla (Perla) annulicauda Pictet, 1841: 249

Neoperla guatemalensis Enderlein, 1909: 161

nec Neoperla annulicauda ( Pictet, 1841) in Enderlein, 1909: 175

Anacroneuria sulana Needham & Broughton, 1927: 112

nec Anacroneuria annulicauda ( Pictet, 1841) in Needham & Broughton, 1927: 111

Anacroneuria sulana Needham & Broughton, 1927 in Jewett, 1958: 163

Anacroneuria annulicauda ( Pictet, 1841) in Zwick, 1972: 1152

Anacroneuria sulana Needham & Broughton, 1927 (synonym of Perla (Perla) annulicauda Pictet, 1841 ) in Zwick, 1972: 1152

Neoperla guatemalensis Enderlein, 1909 (subjective synonym of Perla (Perla) annulicauda Pictet, 1841 ) in Zwick, 1972: 1152

Anacroneuria annulicauda ( Pictet, 1841) in Zwick, 1973: 270

Anacroneuria annulicauda ( Pictet, 1841) in Stark & Kondratieff, 2004: 6

Neoperla guatemalensis Enderlein, 1909 (synonym of Perla (Perla) annulicauda Pictet, 1841 ) in Stark & Kondratieff, 2004: 6

Anacroneuria annulicauda ( Pictet, 1841) in Froehlich, 2010: 146

Pictet (1841) described this species based on a syntype series consisting of a single female specimen from Mexico and a male specimen from Brazil. Neither of these specimens is provided with a specific location. The male was deposited in the Museum of Vienna (Naturhistorische Museum Wien, Austria), while the female was deposited in Berlin. Illustrations of habitus with wings closed and open, details of the head and pronotum and description of the cerci were given in the species description ( Pictet, 1841, Pl. 22, Figs. 1 –4).

Hagen (1861) was the first author to provide further comments on the species, but only based on Pictet’s original description and without seeing the syntype material.

Enderlein (1909), based on material from Santa Catarina, Southern Brazil, identified a single male and four females as A. annulicauda , and provided a description for these specimens which stray from the original description and illustrations on the pronotal coloration. He also described a new species from Guatemala and Mexico, Neoperla guatemalensis Enderlein, 1909 , and presented an outline drawing of the female subgenital plate for both species. The type series of N. guatemalensis was originally deposited in the National Museum of Stettin, Poland (Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie), but is now housed in the Museum of the Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Needham and Broughton (1927) made some comments on A. annulicauda based exclusively on the females from Brazil, and attempted to provide a “fuller characterization” of the species. In this work, they also described another new species, Anacroneuria sulana Needham & Broughton, 1927 based on three females from the British Honduras, modern-day Belize, and an outline drawing of the female subgenital plate was presented. Claassen (1940) provided a brief taxonomic history of A. annulicauda , and Jewett (1958) expanded the known distribution of A. sulana based on records from Mexico, Guatemala and Panama.

Zwick (1972) provided some insightful information on A. annulicauda . The syntype male from Brazil, deposited in the Museum of Vienna, was declared lost. Zwick also examined part of the type series of Anacroneuria nigrocincta ( Pictet, 1841) and recognized them as belonging to A. annulicauda . The remaining syntype was redescribed by Zwick and was declared as the lectotype of the species. According to Zwick, most of the maculation pattern and color of the lectotype has been lost, and the most reliable character for the identification of the species is the shape of the subgenital plate. Thus, based on this observation, Zwick concluded that the shape of the subgenital plate of A. sulana , as represented by the original drawing, was so similar to that of the lectotype of A. annulicauda , that these species were placed in synonymy. He also declared that A. guatemalensis was a junior subjective synonym of A. annulicauda . This he based on the similarity of the original drawing of the N. guatemalensis subgenital plate.

Zwick (1973) provided a simple taxonomic history of the species and questioned the identity of the material of Enderlein (1909) and Needham & Broughton (1927) identified as A. annulicauda from Brazil. The validity of disjunct species occurrences in Northern Central America and Brazil is certainly doubtful. Given the unlikely disjunct distribution of the species, the loss of the Brazilian male syntype, and the subgenital plate differences between the female lectotype and all other material ever described in Brazil, the occurrence of the species was considered as restricted to Guatemala, Panama and Mexico.

Based on material from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, Stark and Kondratieff (2004) identified males and females of A. annulicauda . The reason behind this association, however, was not mentioned by them. Head and pronotum pattern (gender not mentioned), female subgenital plate, and male penial armature were also illustrated by them. Still, according to Stark and Kondratieff (2004), given the similarities between both species, A. sulana was placed as junior synonym of A. lineata (Navás, 1924) . The Plecoptera Species File database ( DeWalt et al., 2025), however, keeps A. sulana as a synonym under A. annulicauda , as proposed by Zwick (1972). Finally, Stark and Kondratieff (2004) agreed with the synonymy of N. guatemalensis under A. annulicauda as proposed by Zwick (1972).

Currently, the lectotype of A. annulicauda is uniformly ochre in color, with a single longitudinal lighter band on its meso- and metanotum. The subgenital plate is detached from the abdomen and appears to be slightly deformed ( Fig 1 , A–C).

Over the last few decades, Anacroneuria taxonomy has mostly moved from the shape/morphology of the female subgenital plate as the primary species-level character-bearing structure, nowadays relying heavily on the structure of the male penial armature ( Zwick, 1973; Stark, 1995; Stark & Sivec, 1998; Bispo & Froehlich, 2004). Many species have similarly shaped female subgenital plates, and they may be deformed during oviposition. As such, A. annulicauda stands as a debatable species considering its defining characteristics and the uncertainty of its synonyms. Even with the male penial armature being described in Stark & Kondratieff (2004), the lack of a clear criteria for the association of males to females and its confusing taxonomic history should be considered as a whole when questioning the species.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Lectotype of Anacroneuria annulicauda (Pictet, 1841) (A–C) and holotype of Anacroneuria longicauda (Pictet, 1841) (D–F).A: general state of specimen; B: subgenital plate; C: labels that accompany specimen; D: general state of specimen; E: subgenital plate; F: labels that accompany specimen.