First record of Duilius bipunctatus (Fieber, 1866) (Hemiptera : Auchenorrhyncha : Cixiidae), a Tamarix-feeding planthopper, from Malta

Abstract

The genus Duilius Stål, 1858 is a member of the planthopper family Cixiidae and the sole representative of the tribe Duiliini Emeljanov, 2002. Currently, 22 species of the genus are known, which are grouped into three subgenera: Duilius Stål (17 species), Duiliopsisde Bergevin, 1933 (1 species) and BitropisDlabola, 1985 (4 species) (Emeljanov, 2015, Bourgoin, 2019, Dmitriev et al. 2022 onward). Species in this genus are distinguished from other cixiids by the following morphological features: elongated and slender body, obsoletekeels on the postclypeus, lack of medianocellus, distinct median keel on the vertex and three mesonotal keels (Emeljanov 2002, 2015, Holzinger 2002). They are distributed in the Palaearctic and Ethiopian realms (Huang & Holzinger 2010). Most species are recorded from plants of the genus TamarixL. (Tamaricaceae) (Emeljanov 2012). Three species, namely D.bipunctatus(Fieber, 1866), D. seticulosus (Lethierry, 1874) and D. viridulus(Horváth, 1895), are recorded from Europe, having a mainly Mediterranean distribution. All three species are known to occur in Sicily, with which the Maltese islands share a common geological history, at least during the Glacial Maximum when the Sicilian south-eastern corner was connected to the Malta-Gozo insular system by a narrow strip of land (Cappadonia et al. 2018).