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Family Caliscelidae Amyot and Serville, 1843

Subfamily Caliscelinae Amyot and Serville, 1843

Tribe Peltonotellini Emeljanov, 2008

Genus Papagona Ball, 1935.

Type species: Papagona papoosa Ball, 1935: 40.

Synonyms: None.

Distribution

USA: Arizona & Brazil

Recognized species

This genus was recently revised by De Freitas et al. 2021.

There are 3 recognized species [see Metcalf 1958: 116]:

1. Papagona dietrichi De Freitas, Zahniser & Takiya – Brazil (Roraima)
2. Papagona papoosa Ball, 1935: 41 – USA: AZ
3. Papagona succinea Ball, 1935: 41 – USA: AZ

Economic Importance

Limited, seldom encountered.

Plant associations

• Papagona papoosa – Muhlenbergia porteri Scribn. ex Beal (muhly grass, Poaceae)
• Papagona succinea – Tridens muticus (Torr.) Nash  (Poaceae, as Triodia mutica)

Hosts from Ball 1935, Wilson et al. 1994; plant names from USDA PLANTS.

Recognition

Genus is distinctive. Unique head structure among North American Caliscelidae.

Described by Ball (1935: 40) as:

Papagona Ball n. gen.
Allied to Aphelonema but much more elongate in form with the vertex as long as wide the eyes enclosing only about half the pronotum and the front triangular, broadest below.  Vertex flat, long and narrow, longer than pronotum, equalling the mesonotum, as long as its basal width. Head with the eyes definitely narrower than the pronotum which is constricted on the anterior half and enclosed by the eyes and then widened and laterally carinate posteriorly, but again exceeded in width by the elytra and abdomen. (In Aphelonema the insect is barrel shaped, the head almost as wide as the body.) Pronotum extremely long and narrow, almost as long as wide, the lateral margins carinate and broadly pustulate, mesonotum elongate the lateral carinae extremely high and enclosing a tablet that is much longer than wide. Elytra brachypterous covering over one-half the abdomen, the sutural line depressed in middle, the posterior margin rounding with an inflated area in front on either side. Venation as in Aphelonema. Hind tibia with a single stout spine. Face elongate, retreating, forming a 30° angle with vertex. Front the shape of a rather long flat-iron. Truncate with two pustules below. The lateral pustulate areas extremely wide above.
Type of the genus: Papagona papoosa n. sp.

Description of genus from Ball 1935, as quoted by Doering 1939: 145-146.

Allied to Aphelonema, but much more elongate in form, with the vertex as long as wide, the eyes enclosing only about half the pronotum and the front triangular, broadest below. “Vertex flat, long and narrow, longer than pronotum, equaling the mesonotum, as long as its basal width. Head with the eyes definitely narrower than the pronotum which is constricted on the anterior half and enclosed by the eyes and then widened and laterally carinate posteriorly, but again exceeded in width by the elytra and abdomen. (In Aphelonema the insect is barrel-shaped, the head almost as wide as the body.) Pronotum extremely long and narrow, almost as long as wide, the lateral margins carinate and broadly pustulate, mesonotum elongate, the lateral carinae extremely high and enclosing a tablet that is much longer than wide. Elytra brachypterous, covering over one-half the abdomen, the sutural line depressed in middle, the posterior margin rounding with an inflated area in front on either side. Venation as in Aphelonema. Hind tibiae with a single stout spine. Face elongate, retreating, forming a 30° angle with vertex. Front the shape of a rather long flatiron. Truncate with two pustules below. The lateral pustulate areas extremely wide above. Type of genus: Papagona papoosa

Key to species from De Freitas et al. 2021

1. Face, forewings, and abdomen mostly orangish-red … Papagona succinea Ball, 1935
1-. Face, forewings, and abdomen mostly black … 2
2. Anterior margin of vertex almost rounded; frons without median carina; abdomen with tergites bearing dorsolateral pair of small pale-yellow maculae; sternites, in lateral view, with lateral white maculae; phallus with pair of aedeagal hooks subequal and curved anterodorsally … Papagona papoosa Ball, 1935
2-. Anterior margin of vertex almost pointed; frons with median carina (Fig. 2A, D, G); abdomen with tergites bearing dorsomedian pair of small and conspicuous yellow maculae; sternites, in lateral view, with lateral white maculae small and faint; phallus with pair of aedeagal hooks, of which one is long and curved anterodorsally, and other is strongly curved laterally, crossing the sides of phallus … Papagona dietrichi De Freitas, Zahniser & Takiya, 2021

 

Papagona papoosa (below) by Salvador Vitanza, used by permission; see page on bugguide.

 

Collecting

Seldom encountered, collected by sweeping low vegetation.

Molecular resources: 

As of this writing (25 Sept. 2018), no data for this genus appears on Barcode of Life or Genbank.

Selected references:

Amyot, C. J. B. and J. G. A. Serville. 1843. Deuxième partie. Homoptères. Homoptera Latr. In Histoire naturelle des Insectes. Hémiptères. Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret, Paris. P.: i-lxxvi, 1-676. Plate(s): 1-12. [See pp. 455-588 and pls. 9-12].

Ball, E. D. 1935. Some new Issidae with notes on others (Homoptera: Fulgoridae). Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 30: 37-41.

Bartlett, C. R., L. B. O’Brien and S. W. Wilson. 2014. A review of the planthoppers (Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea) of the United States. Memoirs of the American Entomological Society 50: 1-287. [in checklist on p 87]

Doering. K. C. 1939 [1940a]. A contribution to the taxonomy of the subfamily Issinae in America north of Mexico (Fulgoroidea: Homoptera. Part III. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 26(2): 83-167. [see p. 145]

Emeljanov, A. F. 1999. Notes on delimitation of families of the Issidae group with description of a new species of Caliscelidae belonging to a new genus and tribe (Homoptera, Fulgoroidea). Zoosystematica Rossica 8(1): 61-72.

Emeljanov, A. F. 2008. New species of the genus Peltonotellus Puton (Homoptera, Caliscelidae) from Kazakhstan, Middle and Central Asia. Tethys Entomological Research 16: 5-12.

Freitas, A.S. de, J.N. Zahniser, and D.M. Takiya. 2021. Review of the genus Papagona Ball, 1935 (Hemiptera: Caliscelidae) including a new Neotropical species. Zootaxa 5023(1): 107-120.

Gnezdilov, V. M. 2013. A modern system of the family Caliscelidae Amyot et Serville (Homoptera, Fulgoroidea). Zoologicheskii Zhurnal 92(11): 1309-1311.

Metcalf, Z. P. 1958. General Catalogue of the Homoptera. Fascicle IV, Fulgoroidea, Part 15, Issidae. Waverly Press, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland. [see p. 116]

O’Brien, L.B. 1967. Caliscelis bonellii (Latreille), a European genus of Issidae new to the United States (Homoptera: Fulgoroidea). Pan-Pacific Entomologist 43: 130-133. [genus noted]

Wilson, S. W., C. Mitter, R. F. Denno and M. R. Wilson. 1994. Evolutionary patterns of host plant use by delphacid planthoppers and their relatives. In: R. F. Denno and T. J. Perfect, (eds.). Planthoppers: Their Ecology and Management. Chapman and Hall, New York. Pp. 7-45 & Appendix