Planuncus tingitanus
| Planuncus tingitanus | ||||||||||||
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Planuncus tingitanus , female |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Planuncus tingitanus | ||||||||||||
| ( Bolivar , 1914) |
Planuncus tingitanus is a species of forest cockroaches , a group in the wild, just outside of buildings, living cockroach species. The species belongs to a species complex of closely related species native to the Mediterranean area, which until a revision in 2013had been placed underthe genus Ectobius . Three species have been described inthe species group, albeit partially incomplete, so that the animals cannot be assigned to one of the species on the basis of the descriptions; it is even not improbable that it is actually the same species. Because of this uncertainty, most of the animals are referred to as Planuncus tingitanus sensu lato (abbreviated s.lat. Or s. L., Latin for "in a broader sense").
As neozoa, the animals were carried away by humans to other regions outside of their original home. They were detected in Germany in the northern Upper Rhine Plain, for the first time in Mainz in 2007 , where they have built up stable populations that continue to reproduce (i.e. not only inconsistently introduced). They live here in green spaces and bushes within human settlements.
features
The animals resemble other forest cockroach species in their general body shape. Their wings are a little shortened. The fore wings ( cover wings ) almost reach the tip of the abdomen in the male, but are a little shorter in the female. The hind wings are more shortened, with partially reduced veining. The entire body is colored pale yellow in the basic color, the central spot (discal spot) on the pronotum is yellow without dark drawing elements. There is a somewhat darkened band between the eyes. The abdomen is colored entirely yellow in the males or has two rows of darker points; in the female it is usually darker, with dark transverse bands, or completely darkened. For a reliable identification of the species, however, an examination of the genital appendages, especially of the males, is necessary; a reliable identification based on photos is not possible. At the tip of the abdomen, the males have a strongly arched, boat-shaped, symmetrical, only slightly sclerotized subgenital plate, rounded on the underside, with the mating organs sunk into the upper side. The shape of the (asymmetrical), hook-shaped left parameters (genital hooks) is important for the species diagnosis. This is weakly sclerotized, especially on the outside, with a long shaft and an almost right-angled tip with an evenly rounded claw. The seventh tergite of the abdomen has a glandular opening with a characteristic shape. This sits centrally on a small elevation, it is sunk in the shape of a blunt heart with indistinct edges and a central, button-like elevation that is densely covered with (longitudinally furrowed) bristles.
The ootheca the female has a characteristic shape with about 17 longitudinal ribs. The early nymph stages , like many species of the genus, have an easily recognizable color. They are dark in color with a sharply defined, white transverse band over the metanotum .
Biology and way of life
As far as is known, the species has one generation per year ( univoltin ). Hibernate the discarded oothecae. In the spring hatch from the eggs therein from the young nymphs until late summer or early fall to Imagines develop. After mating and depositing the oothecae, the adults die in late autumn. In Germany, the animals were found on shrub species, exclusively in settlement areas. In Ludwigshafen the animals live in an inner-city forest. Finds are usually from house gardens, from railway grounds, from bushes along a parking lot and from similar locations. With their shortened wings, the adults are only able to jump a little longer, but are not able to fly over longer distances. The spread therefore takes place primarily with the help of humans (anthropochor), possibly via cars.
distribution
The species in the broader sense (species aggregate) lives in North Africa (Algeria, Morocco), in Spain and in the south of France. In Germany, there are so far finds from the northern Upper Rhine Plain, from Rhineland-Palatinate (Koblenz, Mainz, Ludwigshafen, Worms, Neustadt adW), from Baden-Württemberg (Heidelberg) and from southern Hesse (Bürstadt and Lampertheim). The only English find so far from 2011 comes from Hythe , near Dover.
Taxonomy
The taxonomy of the wood cockroach has not yet been adequately clarified. The genera are differentiated according to characteristics such as wing length or color, which are highly variable and have probably developed convergent many times . In a taxonomic revision, the entomologist in Munich, Horst Bohn , established the new genus Planuncus for a number of species that had previously been assigned to the genera Ectobius and Phyllodromica . He divides these into two species groups in the rank of subgenus, Planuncus s. st. and Margundatus . Three species have been described within the subgenus Planuncus :
- Planuncus tingitanus (Bolivar, 1914)
- Planuncus finoti (Chopard, 1943)
- Planuncus vinzi (Maurel, 2012)
Planuncus tingitanus has been described from Tangier (Morocco), Planuncus finoti from Ghazaouet , Algeria, and Planucus vinzi in the Lot department , France. The descriptions make no mention of differential characteristics between species and are based in part on characteristics that are variable between individuals of a species. Although Bohn suspects that all animals found so far could belong to the same species, he has refrained from formally synonymizing the species because future investigations may still reveal useful characteristics. As a result, today, apart from the type specimens of the first descriptions, the individuals have not been assigned to one of the three species, but to a broad species aggregate from all three species. If the differences are not confirmed, the valid species name would be Planuncus tingitanus , because this was the first to be described.
swell
- Horst Bohn, George Beccaloni, Wolfgang HO Dorow, Manfred Alban Pfeifer (2013): Another species of European Ectobiinae traveling north - the new genus Planuncus and its relatives (Insecta: Blattodea: Ectobiinae). Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny 71 (3): 139-168.
- Manfred Alban Pfeifer (2015): Two neobiotic forest cockroaches (Blattoptera: Ectobiinae) new for the state of Hesse (Federal Republic of Germany). Articulata 30: 109-113.
