PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 105(3). 2003. pp. 674-678 THE IDENTITY AND REINSTATEMENT OF HOMALODISCA LITURATA BALL AND PHERA LACERTA FOWLER (HEMIPTERA: CICADELLIDAE) Roger A. Burks and Richard A. Redak Entomology Department, University of California, River.side, CA 92521, U.S.A. (e-mail:
[email protected]) Abstract. — Phera lacerta Fowler, combination restored, is transferred back to its orig-inal genus. Homalodisca liturata Ball, validity restored, is removed from synonymy with P. lacerta. Recent literature referring to P. lacerta as the smoke tree sharpshooter and a close relative of Homalodisca coagulata (Say), the glassy-winged sharpshooter, should actually be taken to refer to H. liturata. Key Words: sharpshooter, Cicadellidae, Homalodisca. leafhopper Phera lacerta Fowler, combination re-stored, was described in 1899 from Chil-pancingo, Guerrero, in southwestern Mexi-co (Fowler 1899b). It was transferred to Homalodisca Stal by Young ( 1968) as a se-nior synonym of Homalodisca liturata Ball validity restored, which had been de-scribed from Phoenix, AZ. Yuma. CA, and Comundu, Baja California Sur, Mexico, in 1901. The synonymy was made without comment or explanation, although he had reviewed both P. lacerta (Young 1965) and H. liturata (Young 1958) previously in oth-er studies. That synonymy is reversed here, as P. lacerta and H. liturata represent dis-tinctly different entities belonging to differ-ent genera. Homalodisca liturata (as Homalodisca lacerta) has been the subject of much dis-cussion in recent literature (e.g., Nielsen 1968, Powers 1973, Gill 1994, Sorensen and Gill 1996, Blua et al. 1999, Costa et al. 2000, Bethke et al. 2001, Rakitov and Die-trich 200 1 ) as a close relative of the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca coagu-lata (Say), a major pest of citrus, grapes, and ornamentals. Both H. liturata and H. coagulata are vectors of various strains of the phytopathogenic bacterium Xylella fas-tidiosa, which cause the diseases known as Pierce's disease in grapes, oleander leaf scorch, almond leaf scorch, phony peach disease, alfalfa dwarf, and citrus variegated chlorosis depending upon the crop species infected and bacterial strain involved (Blua et al. 1999). Homalodisca coagulata, a spe-cies from the eastern United States acciden-tally introduced to the western United States and northern Mexico, is the most im-portant vector of this disease in North American agricultural systems at this time, but H. liturata is also of interest as a closely related vector apparently native to south-western North America. Materials and Methods The type and other holdings of Homal-odisca liturata. in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (USNM), were examined, as well as nu-merous specimens (over 100) of that spe-cies at the University of California. River-side, Entomology Research Museum (UCRC). Photographs (Figs. 1-2) of the lectotype (female) of Phera lacerta were obtained from The Natural History Muse-
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