PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 101(3), 1999, pp. 469-489 REVIEW OF THE NEW WORLD TREEHOPPER TRIBE STEGASPIDINI (HEMIPTERA: MEMBRACIDAE: STEGASPIDINAE): I: BOCYDIUM LATREILLE, URANIA STAL, AND SMERDALEA FOWLER Jason R. Cryan and Lewis L. Deitz Department of Entomology, Box 7613, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7613, U.S.A. (e-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected]); (JRC) cur-rent address: Department of Zoology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, U.S.A. Abstract. — The tribe Stegaspidini Haupt, 1929 (Hemiptera: Membracidae: Stegaspidi-nae) and three included genera, Bocydium Latreille, Lirania Stal, and Smerdalea Fowler, are described and illustrated based on adult and nymphal morphology. Bocydium has 15 valid species, including B. duoglobum Cryan, new species; Lirania is monotypic; and Smerdalea has 4 valid species, including S. imminens Cryan, new species. The genus Smerdalea is transferred from the tribe Microcentrini to Stegaspidini; a description of the previously unknown nymph of S. elevata Cryan is given. Updated taxonomic keys for the tribe and for the genera Bocydium and Smerdalea are presented; complete species checklists are compiled, with synonymies, for each genus. Key Words: Membracidae, Stegaspidini, Bocydium, Lirania, Smerdalea, taxonomy Stegaspidini are unusual and often con-spicuous treehoppers occurring in Mexico and throughout Central America and most of South America. Here included in this tribe are the genera Bocydium Latreille, Lir-ania Stal, Smerdalea Fowler, Lycoderes Germar, Oeda Amyot and Serville, Stegas-pis Germar, Flexocentrus Coding, Stylocen-trus Stal, and Umbelligerus Deitz. Whereas all members of its sister tribe Microcentrini are solitary as adults (Cryan and Deitz, in press), some stegaspidines have been ob-served in small aggregations of adults and nymphs (Haviland 1925a, Boulard 1979g). In addition, species of Flexocentrus, Ste-gaspis, and Lycoderes have been observed with ant attendants (Cryan and Deitz, in preparation). Host records currently avail-able for Stegaspidini are restricted to the plant families Asteraceae, Guttiferae, Me-lastomataceae, Moraceae, and Rubiaceae. The primary goal of this work is to re-view the tribe Stegaspidini at the generic level, based on comparative morphology. Keys for the identification of various ste-gaspidine taxa were outdated or nonexis-tent, and are here modernized. A summary of known distribution and biological data for the included taxa is provided, and for genera where sufficient material and infor-mation were available, species level revi-sions are presented. In all other cases, an updated species checklist is compiled fol-lowing the generic description. The tribe will be reviewed in a series of three publi-cations, with the present paper including a redescription of the tribe Stegaspidini, as well as treatments of the genera Bocydium, Lirania, and Smerdalea. Amyot and Serville (1843a) recognized the group by the vernacular name "Bocy-dides" and Coding (1926e) called the same
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