''Maiestas vetus'' is a species of bug from the Cicadellidae family that is indigenous to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It was originally described as ''Deltocephalus (Recilia) vetus'' until being revised into ''

Maiestas ''Maiestas'' is a genus of insects in the family Cicadellidae, the vast majority of which were formerly placed in the genus '' Recilia''.Webb, M.D.; Viraktamath, C.A. 2009: Annotated check-list, generic key and new species of Old World Deltocep ...

''.

Description

The males of the species are long, with an average of . Their

genitalia A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...

have a bit longer pygophore. Females are smaller than males, ranging from with an average of . Both sexes are elongated, and have near rectangular lobes. Their

aedeagus An aedeagus (plural aedeagi) is a reproductive organ of male arthropods through which they secrete sperm from the testes during copulation with a female. It can be thought of as the insect equivalent of a mammal's penis, though the comparison ...

have short shafts, which are cylindrical in shape. They are pale stramineous or ivory-coloured. Their clypeus have a series of transverse bands, which are pale brown in colour. They have two rounded vertices, one of which is located on the top of the apex and has two spots on it. The other is on the anterior margin, closer to the

ocellus A simple eye (sometimes called a pigment pit) refers to a form of eye or an optical arrangement composed of a single lens and without an elaborate retina such as occurs in most vertebrates. In this sense "simple eye" is distinct from a multi-l ...

, which is dark brown in colour. Sometimes they have two longitudinal bands which are pale orange coloured and are located on top of the disc. Their

pronotum The prothorax is the foremost of the three segments in the thorax of an insect, and bears the first pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the pronotum (dorsal), the prosternum (ventral), and the propleuron (lateral) on ea ...

have three longitudinal bands and are a little bit longer than vertex. They are also the same colour and are located on both sides of midline. Their clypellus is parallel, and has a margin that is adjacent to its gena, which is a bit wider than ocellucular part. The ocelli themselves are separated from the

eye Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several photo response functions that are independent of vision. Eyes detect light and conv ...

s by one diameter. The ventral margin is extended over the

gonopore A gonopore, sometimes called a gonadopore, is a genital pore in many invertebrates. Hexapods, including insects have a single common gonopore, except mayflies, which have a pair of gonopores. More specifically, in the unmodified female it is the ...

and is narrow.

Similar species

The species is similar to '' Deltocephalus distinctus'', a species that can be found from

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and into

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

. The difference between them is that the gonopore is of different size, and is located in the opposite position. It also has much a longer and slender apex, which is located on the aedeagus. The other difference is the complete absence of dark brown spots, which are located on the anterior margin of the vertex. Just like '' Recilia hospes'', the species were found in

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

sedge The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus ''Carex'' wit ...

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

s, and on

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

s in the genus ''

Nothofagus ''Nothofagus'', also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Gui ...

'' in

References

External links

* * Maiestas Endemic fauna of India Hemiptera of Asia Insects described in 1975 {{Deltocephalinae-stub