Family Fulgoridae

Subfamily Amyclinae

Tribe Amyclini Metcalf, 1938

Genus Amycle Stål, 1861

Type species (in original combination): Fulgora (Episcius?) amabilis Westwood, 1842.

Synonyms:  None.

Distribution: Southwestern US, Central & South America.

Recognized species

There are 9 species currently assigned to this genus (4 in the US), as follows.

Amycle amabilis (Westwood, 1842) - Mexico, Guatemala
Amycle brevis O'Brien, 1988 - Mexico
Amycle grandis O'Brien, 1988 - Mexico
Amycle mankinsi O'Brien, 1988 - Honduras
Amycle pinyonae Knull & Knull, 1947 - USA: AZ, CA, NM
Amycle saxatilis Van Duzee, 1914 - USA: CA
Amycle sodalis Stål, 1861 - Mexico
Amycle tumacacoriae Knull & Knull, 1947 - USA: AR, AZ, OK, TX
Amycle vernalis Manee, 1910 - USA: AL, FL, GA, LA, NC, SC, TX

Economic Importance:

Limited.

Known host plants: 

Amycle vernalis - Eragrostis curvula (Schrad.) Nees (weeping lovegrass, Poaceae), Schizachyrium scoparium (Michx.) Nash (little bluestem), Andropogon ternarius Michx. (splitbeard bluestem), A. virginicus L. (broomsedge bluestem), Danthonia sericea Nutt., and Deschampsia flexuosa (L.) Trin..

Hosts from Wheeler & Wilson (2005, 2010) (none in Wilson et al. 1994); plant names from USDA PLANTS or Tropicos.

Recognition:

Head strongly anteriorly produced (one of only 3 fulgorid genera north of Mexico); cephalic process narrowed apically, flattened dorsoventrally; vertex elongate triangular, base nearly twice as wide as apex (vs. Rhabdocephala and Scolopsella).

Amycle saxatilis (Lectotype; photos courtesy Norm Penny from California Academy of Sciences)

Amycle tumacacoriae (photographs by Kimberley Shropshire, University of Delaware; scale = 1 mm)

This genus is here on Bugguide (I am not sure that the species identifications are right).

Collecting

Adults are taken sweeping, beating, or inspection of hosts.  Wheeler & Wilson (2005) report Amycle were sampled by
holding a white enamel pan at the base of a grass, striking the crown with an ax handle, and collecting dislodged adults and nymphs.

Molecular resources: Genbank has several genes for Amycle vernalis; Barcode of Life has data for Amycle vernalis and A. saxatilis.

Selected references:

Knull, D. J. and J. N. Knull. 1947. Two new Amycle (Homoptera: Fulgoridae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 60: 397-400.

Manee, A. H. 1910. Two new Fulgorids (Hemiptera-Homoptera). Entomological News. Published by the American Entomological Society. Philadelphia 21: 117.

Metcalf, Z. P. 1938. The Fulgorina of Barro Colorado and other parts of Panama. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard Coll. 82: 277-423. [available from http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org]

Metcalf, Z. P. 1947. General Catalogue of the Homoptera. Fascicle IV Fulgoroidea. Part 9 Fulgoridae. Smith College, Northhampton, Massachusetts.

O'Brien, L. B. 1988. New World Fulgoridae, part 1: genera with elongate head processes. Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs 12: 135-170.

Stål, C. 1861. Miscellanea hemopterologica. Entomologische Zeitung. Herausgegeben von dem entomologischen Vereine zu Stettin. Stettin 22: 129-153.

Van Duzee, E. P. 1914. A preliminary list of the Hemiptera of San Diego County, California. Transactions of the San Diego Society of Natural History 2: 1-57.

Walker. F. 1858. Supplement. List of the specimens of Homopterous insects in the collection of the British Museum. 307 pp.

Westwood, J. O. 1842. Insectorum novorum centuria, auctore. Annals and Magazine of Natural History. London 9: 118-119.

Wilson, S. W. and A. G. Wheeler, Jr. 2005. An African grass, Eragrostis curvula (Poaceae), planted in the southern United States recruits rarely collected native planthoppers (Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea: Dictyopharidae, Fulgoridae). Journal of the New York Entomological Society 113(3-4): 174-204.

Wilson, S. W. and A. G. Wheeler, Jr. 2010. Planthopper (Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea) diversity of weeping lovegrass (Eragrostis curvula), an introduced host of little known, rarely collected native species. Entomologica Americana 116(3/4): 98–106.

Wilson, S. W., C. Mitter, R. F. Denno, and M. R. Wilson. 1994. Evolutionary patterns of host plant use by delphacid planthoppers and their relatives. In: R. F. Denno and T. J. Perfect, (eds.). Planthoppers: Their Ecology and Management. Chapman and Hall, New York. Pp. 7-45 & Appendix.

Zolnerowich, G. 1992. A unique Amycle nymph (Homoptera: Fulgoridae) that mimics jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae). Journal of the New York Entomological Society 100(3): 498-502.