Aploploides Rehn & Hebard, 1938

Description

Body form elongate and slender; surface granulate with occasional tubercles.

Head elongate and slender in the male, more robust in the female; vertex slightly swollen. Antennae slightly longer than the anterior legs; scape depressed; pedicel subcylindrical. Compound eyes small, not bulging in the female; ocelli absent.

Pronotum elongate, rectangular; anterolateral defensive gland opening present. Prosternum trapezoidal, the lateral margins convexly curved. Mesothorax elongate, cylindrical in the male, more robust in the female, notum medially obtusely carinate. Suture between the metathorax and medin segment absent in the female, notum medially carinate, median segment longer than the metanotum.

Abdomen cylindrical in the male, segments II-VII very elongate, at least three times as long as broad, segments VIII-IX shorter, about twice as long as broad, X elongate, apex produced and medially emarginate. Vomer with a very large, shield-shaped base and a short sclerotized tip; subgenital plate scoop-like, medially carinate; genitalia with a strongly-chitinized dorsal sclerite which runs up the dextral side and then across the apex, dextral hook very slender, somewhat hidden by the dextroventral mass.

Abdomen broader in the female, segments II-VII subequal in length, II quadrate, segments gradually narrowing to VII, VII and VIII elongate, IX shorter, quadrate, X elongate, apex emarginate. Supraanal plate triangular, carinate, small. Sternite VII with a praeopercular organ; subgenital plate elongate, extending well beyond the apex of the abdomen, medially carinate, apex rounded. Cerci very long, slightly curved.

Legs short and slender, the posterior femora not reaching beyond the middle of abdominal segment IV. Anterior femora strongly curved basally, the lower mdian carina displaced towards the anterior one; middle and posterior femora with the lower median carina spinose, the lower lateral carinae distally bispinose. Tibiae anareolate. First hind tarsomere not longer than the next two together, dorsally rounded.

Female apterous, the male with short tegmina and fully developed wings.

Sexual dimorphism pronounced.

Geographic distribution. Cuba.

Systematic notes. This genus is probably most closely related to Diapherodes Gray, 1835, from which it can be distinguished by the elongate tenth abdominal segment and the scoop-like subgenital plate in the male.

Systematic position.
Superfamily Phasmatoidea | Family Bacteriidae | Tribe Hesperophasmatini