Dicromantispa subcostalis (Navás)

Pires Machado, Renato Jose, Li, Hongyu & Ohl, Michael, 2025, Solving taxonomic and nomenclatural problems among the Neotropical species of the family Mantispidae (Insecta, Neuroptera), Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 72 (1), pp. 57-83 : 57-83

Dicromantispa subcostalis (Navás)

Fig. 17

Mantispa subcostalis Navás, 1929 a: 115 . Holotype: female ( DEI). Type locality: Brazil: Amazonas: São Paulo de Olivença .

Notes.

This is another Neotropical species, which is still placed in Mantispa . The species was described by Navás (1929 a), explicitly based on one female from the Amazonas state in Brazil. More precisely, the holotype is from the municipality of São Paulo de Olivença, located at the margin of the Solimões river (which is the name of the Amazon river before the junction with the Negro river), a remote area in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, very close to the borders of Colombia and Peru. The species was only listed by Penny (1977) and Snyman et al. (2018) and included in the world catalogue of Mantispidae ( Ohl 2004) . After analyzing the holotype, it is clear that it belongs in Dicromantispa , based on the overall brown body color and the pronotum with a few scattered setae (Fig. 17 E ). However, M. subcostalis does not match the diagnostic characters of any of the currently valid species, and for this reason we are considering it as a valid species, Dicromantispa subcostalis (Navás) (new combination).

Dicromantispa until now is represented by eight valid extant species, two of them are restricted to Central and North America, D. interrupta (Say) and D. sayi (Banks) . These can be easily distinguished from D. subcostalis based on the wings and dark pronotal marks, respectively. Like D. subcostalis , all other six species have records from Brazil. Dicromantispa gracilis and D. hyalina Machado and Rafael have the base of their forewings hyaline, separating them from D. subcostalis (Fig. 17 A ). The dark brown costal area in the hind wings of D. leucophaea Machado and Rafael and D. moulti (Navás) separate them from D. subcostalis . The continuous longitudinal dark line in the frons of D. subcostalis (Fig. 17 C ) easily separates it from D. luederwaldti (see discussion above), additionally the marks on the vertex and the shape of the female sternite nine also distinguish them. The remaining species is D. debilis , which apparently is more similar to D. subcostalis , but their pronotal marks are different, and more importantly, the inner forefemoral surface of D. debilis is dark brown, while in D. subcostalis it is light brown (Fig. 17 F ). In fact, the light brown forefemur inner surface is unique to D. subcostalis , while all other Dicromantispa species have the forefemur inner surface entirely dark brown or with at least with a large dark mark. In this sense, D. subcostalis is considered herein as a valid species known only by the female holotype from a remote area in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Future field work in this area will be important to collect male specimens in order to confirm its taxonomic identity.

Figures

Figure 17. Mantispa subcostalis Navás 1929, holotype, female. A. Habitus photo, dorsal view; B. Labels; C, D. Head, frontal and dorsal views; E. Prothorax, dorsal view; F. Foreleg, outer surface; G – H. Pterothorax, dorsal and lateral views; I – J. Genitalia, lateral and ventral views. Scale bars: 10.0 mm (A); 2.0 mm (C – H); 0.5 mm (I, J).