''Miroceramia'' is a

monotypic genus In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

stick insects The Phasmatodea (also known as Phasmida, Phasmatoptera or Spectra) are an order of insects whose members are variously known as stick insects, stick-bugs, walking sticks, stick animals, or bug sticks. They are also occasionally referred to as ...

, containing ''Miroceramia westwoodii'' as the only described species. It is the only fully winged one of the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

Obriminae The Obriminae are the most species-rich subfamily of the Phasmatodea family Heteropterygidae native to Southeast Asia. It is divided into two tribe. Taxonomy The tribe Obrimini was created by Brunner von Wattenwyl in 1893 for the genera '' Obri ...

Characteristics

The species and thus also the genus differ from all other

by the presence of fully developed wings, the very short and medial extended

mesothorax The mesothorax is the middle of the three segments of the thorax of hexapods, and bears the second pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the mesonotum (dorsal), the mesosternum (ventral), and the mesopleuron (lateral) on ...

, which is hardly longer than the

prothorax 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 ...

, as well as the very long tarsi, which are more than half as long as the corresponding

tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...

. In the females, the downward directed secondary

ovipositor The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typical ...

is unique. The eggs can be distinguished from those of related species by their strong longitudinal curvature, whereby the capsule

dorsal Dorsal (from Latin ''dorsum'' ‘back’) may refer to: * Dorsal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location referring to the back or upper side of an organism or parts of an organism * Dorsal, positioned on top of an aircraft's fuselage * Dorsal co ...

convex and

ventral Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek language, Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. Th ...

ly concave. With about in the male, and in length in the female, ''Miroceramia westwoodii'' is a medium-sized Obriminae species. Their most noticeable feature is the presence of wings in both sexes. The

thorax The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the cre ...

is prickly on the surface of the

pro- This is a list of common affixes used when scientifically naming species, particularly extinct species for whom only their scientific names are used, along with their derivations. *a-, an-: ''Pronunciation'': /ə/, /a/, /ən/, /an/. ''Origin'' ...

and

mesonotum The mesothorax is the middle of the three segments of the thorax of hexapods, and bears the second pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the mesonotum (dorsal), the mesosternum (ventral), and the mesopleuron (lateral) on ...

as well as the

pleura The pulmonary pleurae (''sing.'' pleura) are the two opposing layers of serous membrane overlying the lungs and the inside of the surrounding chest walls. The inner pleura, called the visceral pleura, covers the surface of each lung and dips bet ...

. The pronotum is trapezoidal and much narrower at the front edge than at the back. The mesothorax is noticeably shortened and only about 1.2 times longer than the

. The antennae are long and slender. They consist of 26 segments. Both fore and hind wings are present, with the hind wings protruding beyond the anterior ones. The forewings are designed as

tegmina A tegmen (plural: ''tegmina'') designates the modified leathery front wing on an insect particularly in the orders Dermaptera (earwigs), Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets and similar families), Mantodea (praying mantis), Phasmatodea (stick an ...

and reach about two thirds of the length of the hind wings (alae). The hind wings extend to the sixth or seventh segment of the

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the torso. ...

. The tegmina are elongated and narrow towards the end. At the base they are strongly convex and equipped with two spines. The hind wings are ocher and translucent in the anal field. According to a note from M. J. D. Brendell on the label of a male he collected in the

Manusela National Park Manusela National Park is located on Seram island, in the Maluku archipelago of Indonesia. It is made up of coastal forest, swamp forest, lowland and montane rainforest ecosystem types. Mount Binaiya at 3,027 meters, is the highest of the park's ...

Seram Island Seram (formerly spelled Ceram; also Seran or Serang) is the largest and main island of Maluku province of Indonesia, despite Ambon Island's historical importance. It is located just north of the smaller Ambon Island and a few other adjacent is ...

, which is deposited in the

Natural History Museum, London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

, these animals are capable of

stridulation Stridulation is the act of producing sound by rubbing together certain body parts. This behavior is mostly associated with insects, but other animals are known to do this as well, such as a number of species of fish, snakes and spiders. The mech ...

using their wings. In females, segments two to four of the abdomen are roughly the same width and about twice as wide as they are long. The segments behind it gradually taper towards the tip. The secondary ovipositor is long and strongly curved downwards. Its upper part, the

epiproct This glossary of entomology describes terms used in the formal study of insect species by entomologists. A–C A synthetic chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide, toxic to vertebrates. Though i ...

, is blunt and shorter than the lower part. The longer, ventral part of the ovipositor, called subgenital plate, ends with a point. The abdomen of the males is approximately parallel. Their second to seventh segments are almost equally wide and slightly wider than they are long. The segments are pointed at the rear, outer corners and there is a slender spine on the second to fifth segment.

Distribution

The few representatives of the species found so far come from the area of the

Wallace line The Wallace Line or Wallace's Line is a faunal boundary line drawn in 1859 by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and named by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley that separates the biogeographical realms of Asia and Wallacea, a tran ...

, more precisely from the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located eas ...

island Seram and from the north of

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

Taxonomy

The species was described in 1865 by

Henry Walter Bates Henry Walter Bates (8 February 1825, in Leicester – 16 February 1892, in London) was an English naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the rainforests of ...

as ''Heteropteryx westwoodii''. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

is dedicated to

John Obadiah Westwood John Obadiah Westwood (22 December 1805 – 2 January 1893) was an English entomologist and archaeologist also noted for his artistic talents. He published several illustrated works on insects and antiquities. He was among the first entomologist ...

. An

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of major ...

female is deposited as a

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

in the zoological collection of the

Oxford University Museum of Natural History The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sometimes known simply as the Oxford University Museum or OUMNH, is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It a ...

William Forsell Kirby William Forsell Kirby (14 January 1844 – 20 November 1912) was an English entomologist and folklorist. Life He was born in Leicester. He was the eldest son of Samuel Kirby, who was a banker. He was educated privately, and became interested ...

transferred the species to the genus '' Haaniella'' established by him in 1904.

Klaus Günther Klaus is a German, Dutch and Scandinavian given name and surname. It originated as a short form of Nikolaus, a German form of the Greek given name Nicholas. Notable persons whose family name is Klaus *Billy Klaus (1928–2006), American basebal ...

described a species called ''Miroceramia pterobrimus'' using a male holotype. The species name '' pterobrimus '' means winged '' Obrimus'' and indicates both the proximity to the already known representatives of the Obriminae, as well as the peculiarity of this species, namely the presence of wings. The holotype is deposited at the

State Museum of Zoology, Dresden The State Museum of Zoology (german: Staatliches Museum für Tierkunde) in Dresden is a natural history museum that houses 10,000–50,000 specimens, including skeletons and large insect collections. Many are types. The collection suffered war d ...

. In 1998

Philip Edward Bragg Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...

introduced ''Miroceramia pterobrimus'' as

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

to ''Haaniella westwoodii''. Since he synonymized the species, but the genus remained valid, the newly combined name ''Miroceramia westwoodii'' resulted. Type species for the genus ''Miroceramia'' is the synonymized ''Miroceramia pterobrimus''. Due to the clear differences between ''Miroceramia westwoodii'' and almost all other Obriminae,

Oliver Zompro Oliver Zompro is a German biologist who is credited with the discovery in 2002 of a new suborder of carnivorous African insects, Mantophasmatodea or "gladiators", which was originally considered to be a new insect order but was later relegated to ...

established the tribe Miroceramiini for this species in 2004. He also included the monotypical genus '' Mearnsiana'', which up to now was only known from the juvenile female holotype of ''Mearnsiana bullosa''. After their adult wingless

Imago In biology, the imago (Latin for "image") is the last stage an insect attains during its metamorphosis, its process of growth and development; it is also called the imaginal stage, the stage in which the insect attains maturity. It follows the f ...

became known and after a closer comparison of their

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

, ''Mearnsiana bullosa'' was included in the Tribus

Obrimini The Obrimini are the most species-rich tribe of the Phasmatodea family of the Heteropterygidae native to Southeast Asia. Description The Obrimini differ from their sister tribe the Hoplocloniini by the structure of the secondary ovipositor ...

convicted. As a result, the tribe Miroceramiini initially became monotypical, before it was made a synonym for the Obrimini in 2021 after the publication of

genetic studies Genetic analysis is the overall process of studying and researching in fields of science that involve genetics and molecular biology. There are a number of applications that are developed from this research, and these are also considered parts of ...

. The monotypical genus '' Pterobrimus'' was identified by this investigation as the sister genus of ''Miroceramia''.

References

Brock, P. D.; Büscher, T. H. & Baker, E. W.:
Phasmida Species File Online
'. Version 5.0./5.0 (accessdate 24 June 2021) Bank, S.; Buckley, T. R.; Büscher, T. H.; Bresseel, J.; Constant, J.; de Haan, M.; Dittmar, D.; Dräger, H.; Kahar, R. S.; Kang, A.; Kneubühler, B.; Langton-Myers, S. & Bradler, S. (2021).
Reconstructing the nonadaptive radiation of an ancient lineage of ground-dwelling stick insects (Phasmatodea: Heteropterygidae)
', Systematic Entomology, DOI: 10.1111/syen.12472 Kirby, W. F. (1904)
A synonymic catalogue of Orthoptera. 1. Orthoptera Euplexoptera, Cursoria et Gressoria. (Forficulidae, Hemimeridae, Blattidae, Mantidae, Phasmidae)
'. 1904, p. 398 Bragg, P. E. (1998) ''A revision of the Heteropteryginae (Insecta: Phasmida: Bacillidae) of Borneo, with the description of a new genus and ten new species'', Zool. Verh. Leiden 316, 31, 1998, p. 31, Zompro, O. (2004) ''Revision of the genera of the Areolatae, including the status of Timema and Agathemera (Insecta, Phasmatodea)'', Goecke & Evers, Keltern-Weiler, pp. 199–204, Hennemann, F. H.; Conle, O. V.; Brock, P. D. & Seow-Choen, F. (2016) ''Revision of the Oriental subfamiliy Heteropteryginae Kirby, 1896, with a re-arrangement of the family Heteropterygidae and the descriptions of five new species of Haaniella Kirby, 1904. (Phasmatodea: Areolatae: Heteropterygidae)'', Zootaxa 4159 (1), Magnolia Press, Auckland, New Zealand, pp. 21-23,

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q10586224 Phasmatodea Monotypic insect genera