''Tisamenus draconinus'' is a species of
stick insect
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 ...
in the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
Heteropterygidae
The Heteropterygidae is a family of stick insects belonging to the suborder Euphasmatodea. Species can be found in Australasia, East and Southeast Asia. More than 130 valid species have been described (at the end of 2020).
Characteristics Siz ...
native to the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
.
Description
The species is elongated and is described as the spiniest of the
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
. Females reach a length of and vary in color between dark and light brown. Dark brown specimens sometimes only have a light median line on 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 ...
. Males are long and are not quite as variable in color. The triangle on the
mesonotum typical of the genus is flat and ends, as in ''
Tisamenus lachesis'', with interposterior mesonotal spines. The two front angles of the triangle in compound spines forming a toothed crest, the largest element of which is slightly removed from the actual angles. A pair of median metanotals, that is, middle spines on the
metanotum
The metathorax is the posterior of the three segments in the thorax of an insect, and bears the third pair of legs. Its principal sclerites ( exoskeletal plates) are the metanotum (dorsal), the metasternum (ventral), and the metapleuron (lateral) ...
, are present. The side edges of the meso- and metanotum are reinforced with long spines. There are only four spines on each side of the mesonatal margins, while there are usually five in similar species. On each side of the metathorax there is a lateral spine and a very large supraoxal spine, i.e. a spine located above the
coxa. In contrast to many other ''
Tisamenus'' species, ''Tisamenus draconina'' lacks median spines on the upper surface of the anterior segments 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. ...
. Instead, there are only flat nodules or tubercles here. A spine is attached to each side of the first four abdominal segments, with the front spines being longer and more pronounced than the rear ones.
Distribution
While the first description only mentions the Philippines as a distribution area,
James Abram Garfield Rehn
James Abram Garfield Rehn (October 26, 1881 – January 25, 1965) was an American entomologist who was a specialist on the New World Orthoptera. He worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, making several collection expeditions aro ...
and his son
John William Holman Rehn
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
specify this and state the sub-province of
Apayao
Apayao, officially the Province of Apayao ( ilo, Probinsia ti Apayao; fil, Lalawigan ng Apayao), is a landlocked Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Kabugao, Apayao, Kabuga ...
on
Luzon
Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...
as the locality of the eight specimens they examined.
The origin of the breeding stock is in the neighboring province of
Cagayan
Cagayan ( ), officially the Province of Cagayan ( ilo, Probinsia ti Cagayan; ibg, Provinsiya na Cagayan; itv, Provinsiya ya Cagayan; fil, Lalawigan ng Cagayan), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the C ...
on the island of
Palaui. The localities of
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
and
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...
seem doubtful.
Taxonomy
John Obadiah Westwood described the species in 1848 under the
basionym
In the scientific name of organisms, basionym or basyonym means the original name on which a new name is based; the author citation of the new name should include the authors of the basionym in parentheses. The term "basionym" is used in both botan ...
''
Phasma
''Phasma'' is an Australasian genus of stick insects in the family Phasmatidae, subfamily Phasmatinae and tribe Phasmatini.
Species
The Catalogue of Life
The Catalogue of Life is an online database that provides an index of known species o ...
'' (''
Pachymorpha
''Pachymorpha'' is a genus of phasmids belonging to the family Diapheromeridae.
The species of this genus are found in Australasia, Africa, Madagascar and tropical Asia up to southern China.
Species
The ''Phasmida Species File'' lists:
*''Pachy ...
'') ''draconinum'' and depicts a female.
As early as 1859 he transferred it to the genus ''
Acanthoderus
''Acanthoderus''Gray GR (1835) ''Synopsis of the species of insects belonging to the family of Phasmidae'' 14. is a monotypic genus of Phasmatodea, stick insects in the tribe Pachymorphini. The single species ''Acanthoderus spinosus'' has a kn ...
'' established by
George Robert Gray in 1834.
Carl Stål names the species in 1875 as belonging to the genus ''Tisamenus'' described by him. However, in the combination of the generic and species names, he only names the newly described ''
Tisamenus serratorius
''Tisamenus serratorius'' is a Phasmatodea, stick insect species that occurs on the Philippines, Philippine island Luzon.
Taxonomy
In 1875, Carl Stål described ''Tisamenus serratorius'' in the genus ''Tisamenus (insect), Tisamenus'', which he ...
'' and ''Acanthoderus deplanatus'', also described by Westwood, abbreviated as ''T. deplanato'' (today ''
Tisamenus deplanatus'') and counts ''Acanthoderus draconinus''
Westw. only at the end as belonging to this genus.
While
William Forsell Kirby followed this assignment in 1904 and named the species for the first time in combination with the genus name as ''Tisamenus draconinus'',
Josef Redtenbacher
Josef Redtenbacher (March 13, 1810 – March 5, 1870) was an Austrian chemist born in Kirchdorf an der Krems, Upper Austria. He was a brother to entomologist Ludwig Redtenbacher (1814–1876).
He studied medicine and botany at the University ...
1906,
Lawrence Bruner
Lawrence Bruner (March 2, 1856 in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania – January 30, 1937 in Berkeley, California) was a United States entomologist.
Biography
Bruner's parents emigrated to West Point, Nebraska when Bruner was a child. While growing up ...
1915 and also
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 ...
1995 cite Stål with an alleged assignment of the species to ''
Hoploclonia
''Hoploclonia'' is the only genus of the tribe Hoplocloniini and brings together relatively small and darkly coloured Phasmatodea species.
Characteristics
The representatives of this genus are very small with 35 to 40 mm in the male a ...
''. In fact, Stål only names their
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...
''
Hoploclonia gecko
''Hoploclonia gecko'' is a relatively small, spiny and darkly colored stick insect species that is native to the northwest of Borneo.
Taxonomy
Alfred Russel Wallace collected in Sarawak in 1858 a number ofspecimens, but did not leave any more ...
'' in this genus. Redtenbacher mentions 1906 neither the work of Kirby nor its genus assignment and treats the species as a representative of ''Hoploclonia''. He again depicts a female of the species and names specimens from Westwood from the Hofmuseum
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
(now the
Natural History Museum in Vienna
The Natural History Museum Vienna (german: Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the most important natural history museums worldwide.
The NHM Vienna is one of the largest museum ...
) as well as specimens from Borneo from the collection of Staudinger (probably
Otto Staudinger
Otto Staudinger (2 May 1830 – 13 October 1900) was a German entomologist and a natural history dealer considered one of the largest in the world specialising in the collection and sale of insects to museums, scientific institutions, and indi ...
) and his own collection as the material examined.
Because ''Tisamenus draconinus'' does not occur on Borneo, Bragg assumes in 1995 and 1998 that the material was at least partially confused or mixed with ''
Hoploclonia cuspidata
''Hoploclonia cuspidata'' is a stick insect species native to the north of Borneo and is also called Brunei Hoploclonia stick insect.
Taxonomy
When Josef Redtenbacher described the species in 1906, both males and females were available to him ...
'',
although this was described by Redtenbacher in the same work using a female.
In 1939, Rehn and Rehn cite Stål's correct assignment, but transfer the species to ''Hoploclonia'', just like all other representatives of this genus, and
synonymize ''Tisamenus'' with it. The Philippine representatives they lead in ''Hoploclonia'' divide them into different groups according to
morphological aspects. In the so-called Draconina group, they placed with ''Hoploclonia draconina'', as well as the newly described ''Hoploclonia hystrix'' (today ''
Tisamenus hystrix'') and ''Hoploclonia lachesis'' (today ''Tisamenus lachesis''), very strongly spined, elongated and long-legged species.
Up to 2004, ''Tisamenus draconinus'' is continued in almost all works in ''Hoploclonia''.
It was
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 ...
who put it back in ''Tisamenus'' as ''Tisamenus draconicus'' together with all the other Philippine representatives, thus following both Stål and Kirby's assignment.
The use of the originally masculine species name ending "-us", adapted to the also
masculine gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
of the genus name, was only reintroduced in 2024.
A female
lectotype and a male
paralectotype
In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes th ...
are found in the
Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Both were selected as types by Bragg in 1995. Location information or further collection data are missing for both. Only the name of the collector is given as D. Cuming.
Terraristics
A sexual breeding stock initially referred to as ''Tisamenus''
sp. 'Palaui' comes from the island of Palaui, which belongs to the province of Cagayan, where some specimens were collected in 2016. The representatives of this stock are similarly spiny to those of the ''Tisamenus'' sp. 'Cagayan' collected in 2014, but clearly more contrasting and intensely colored. Characteristic of the Palaui stock is an orange color in the females and an almost reddish color in the males. The species was identified by
Frank H. Hennemann
Frank H. Hennemann (born 1 July 1978 in Ludwigshafen) is a German entomologist and taxonomist who works in the field of biodiversity research on the systematics and biogeography of stick insects (Phasmatodea).
Biography
Hennemann grew up in Ba ...
in 2023 as ''Tisamenus draconinus'', so it must be completely referred to as ''Tisamenus draconinus'' 'Palaui'.
The species is very easy to keep and breed. Various forage plants such as
bramble,
hazel
The hazel (''Corylus'') is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K. (1999). ...
,
firethorn
''Pyracantha'' (from Greek "fire" and "thorn", hence firethorn) is a genus of large, thorny evergreen shrubs in the family Rosaceae, with common names firethorn or pyracantha. They are native to an area extending from Southwest Europe east t ...
,
ivy
''Hedera'', commonly called ivy (plural ivies), is a genus of 12–15 species of evergreen climbing or ground-creeping woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to western, central and southern Europe, Macaronesia, northwestern Africa and ...
and
St. John's-worts are eaten.
Gallery
Tisamenus draconia ex Redtenbacher.JPG, drawing of a female from Redtenbacher 1906
Tisamenus draconina - male BMNH (cropped).jpg, male from Natural History Museum – dorsally
Tisamenus draconina - female lateral BMNH (cropped).jpg, female from Natural History Museum – laterally
References
[ Brock, P. D.; Büscher, T. H. & Baker, E. W. ]
Phasmida Species File Online
' (accessdate 21 February 2024)
[ Westwood, J. O. (1848). ]
The Cabinet of Oriental Entomology
', London, p. 78, pl. 38 fig. 5
[ Redtenbacher, J. (1906). ]
Die Insektenfamilie der Phasmiden. Vol. 1. Phasmidae Areolatae
'. Verlag Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, pp. 45–46, pl. 1 fig 9
[ Stå, C. (1875). ]
Recensio orthopterorum. Revue critique des orthoptères, décrits par Linné, de Geer et Thunberg par C. Stål
' in Öfversigt af Kongliga Vetenskaps-Akademiens Förhandlingar, part 32, p. 93
[ Kirby, W. F. (1904)]
A synonymic catalogue of Orthoptera. 1. Orthoptera Euplexoptera, Cursoria et Gressoria. (Forficulidae, Hemimeridae, Blattidae, Mantidae, Phasmidae)
p. 399
[ 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, Zoologische Verhandelingen, Leiden 316, p. 38. /ISBN 90-73239-61-3]
Online-Version
/ref>
[ Rehn, J. A. G. & Rehn, J. W. H. (1939). ]
The Orthoptera of the Philippine Island, Part 1. - Phasmatidae; Obriminae
', Proceedings of The Academy of Natural Sciences (Vol. 90, 1938), Philadelphia 1938/39, pp. 468–471
[ Zompro, O. (2004). Revision of the genera of the Areolatae, including the status of Timema and Agathemera (Insecta, Phasmatodea), Goecke & Evers, Keltern-Weiler, p. 205 & pp. 200–207, ISBN 978-3-931374-39-6]
External links
*
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q10698651
Phasmatodea
Insects described in 1848