Family Dictyopharidae

Subfamily Orgeriinae Fieber, 1872

Tribe Orgeriini Fieber, 1872

Genus Orgerius Stål, 1859

Type species (in original combination): Orgerius rhyparus Stål, 1859.

Synonyms: 

  = Ranissus Fieber, 1866a (Type species Ranissus leptopus Fieber, 1866); syn. by Fieber 1872: 4.

Subgenera were established by Emeljanov (2006) (see below).

Distribution: Southeastern US (north to Oregon, west to Colorado) and adjacent Mexico. (one species from South Africa appears to currently placed in this genus).

Recognized species

There are 15 species currently in the genus in North America, plus one probably misplaced from South Africa.:

Subgenus Orgerius Stål, 1859
Orgerius bilobatus Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: CA
Orgerius bucculentus Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: CA, OR
Orgerius concordus Ball & Hartzell, 1922 - USA: CA; Mexico (Baja California)
     = Orgerius rhyparus var. concordus Ball & Hartzell, 1922: 145.
     = Orgerius concordus Ball & Hartzell, 1922; status by Doering & Darby 1943: 64, 80.
Orgerius disgregus Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: CA
Orgerius glaucus Emeljanov, 2006 - USA: CA
Orgerius junceus Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: CA
Orgerius pajaronius Ball & Hartzell, 1922 - USA: CA, OR
     = Orgerius rhyparus var. pajaronius Ball & Hartzell, 1922: 145.
     = Orgerius pajaronius Ball & Hartzell, 1922; status by Doering & Darby 1943: 64, 73.
Orgerius proprius Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: CA
Orgerius rhyparus Stål, 1859 - USA: AZ, CA, CO, OR; Mexico (Baja California)
     = Orgerius rhyparus var. clitellus Ball & Hartzell, 1922: 145; syn. by Doering & Darby 1943: 64.
Orgerius spicatus Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: CA
Orgerius triquetrus Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: AZ, CA

Subgenus Opsigonus Emeljanov, 2006 (Type species Orgerius minor Ball, 1909).
Orgerius bicornis Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: CA, UT
     = Orgerius bicornis Doering & Darby, 1943: 85.
     = Orgerius (Opsigonus) bicornis Doering & Darby, 1943; status by implication Emeljanov 2006a: 76.
Orgerius foliatus Doering & Darby, 1943 - USA: AZ, CA, NM, NV
     = Orgerius foliatus Doering & Darby, 1943: 87.
     = Orgerius (Opsigonus) foliatus Doering & Darby, 1943; status by implication Emeljanov 2006a: 76.
Orgerius minor Ball, 1909 - USA: CA, CO, ID, NV, UT
     = Orgerius minor Ball, 1909: 202.
     = Orgerius (Parorgerius) minor Ball, 1909; comb. by Melichar 1912: 218.
     = Parorgerius (Parorgerius) minor (Ball, 1909); comb. by Metcalf 1946: 211 (by implication de Bergevin 1924: 258).
     = Orgerius (Opsigonus) minor Ball, 1909; comb. by Emeljanov, 2006: 76.
Orgerius ventosus Ball & Hartzell, 1922 - USA: CA, NV
     = Orgerius rhyparus var. ventosus Ball & Hartzell, 1922: 145.
     = Orgerius ventosus Ball & Hartzell, 1922; status by Doering & Darby 1943: 64, 88.
     = Orgerius (Opsigonus) ventosus Ball & Hartzell, 1922; status by Emeljanov 2006: 76 (by implication); also Kuznetsova et al. 2009.

Orgerius foliata Fennah, 1949 - South Africa [This species seems misplaced - I may have missed a nomenclatural change that places it elsewhere.]

Economic Importance:

Limited.

Known host plants: 

Orgerius foliatus - Atriplex canescens (Pursh) Nutt. (fourwing saltbush, Chenopodiaceae)

Orgerius sp. - Cirsium sp., Cirsium occidentale (Nutt.) Jeps. (as Cirsium californicum A. Gray and Cirsium proteanum J.T. Howell; cobwebby thistle) (Asteraceae)

Opsigonus spp. - reported from Atriplex canescens (Pursh) Nutt. (fourwing saltbush, Chenopodiaceae)

Hosts from Wilson et al. (1994) and Emeljanov (2006); plant names from USDA PLANTS or Tropicos.

Recognition:

Brachypterous, leaving several terga visible from above, tegulae hidden (all Orgeriinae); callosity present behind eye; vertex short, less than 2x length of the eyes.

Keys to genus of US Orgeriinae in Doering & Darby 1943 and Doering (1955). Emeljanov (2006) established subgenera for Orgerius.

Orgerius concordus (All photos by Rick Donovall or Kimberley Shropshire, Department of Entomology, University of Delaware)

Orgerius minor

Orgerius is on Bugguide here.

Collecting

Collected infrequently (but more common than many U.S. Orgeriinae), found by inspecting or sweeping hosts.

Molecular resources: As of this writing, data for Orgerius proprius is available on Genbank, and this genus is not available on Barcode of life.

Selected references:

Ball, E. D. 1909. Some remarkable new leaf-hoppers of the family Fulgoridae. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 22: 197-204.

Ball, E. D. 1937. Some new Fulgoridae from Western United States. Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 32: 171-183.

Ball, E. D. and A. Hartzell. 1922. A review of the desert leafhoppers of the Orgerini (Rhynchota Fulgoridae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 15: 137-152.

Doering, K. C. 1955. Some taxonomic and morphological studies of two genera of North American Dictyopharidae. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 37(7): 195-221.

Doering, K. C. and H. H. Darby. 1943. A contribution to the taxonomy of the genus Orgerius in America, north of Mexico (Fulgoridae, Homoptera). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 16(2-3): 64-98.

Emeljanov, A. F. 1983. Dictyopharidae from the Cretaceous deposits on the Taymyr Peninsula (Insecta, Homoptera). Paleontologicheskii Zhurnal 3: 79-85 [In Russian; translated in: Paleontological Journal 17(3): 77-82].

Fennah R. G. 1949. A new genus of Fulgoroidea (Homoptera) from South Africa. Annals and Magazine of Natural History. London. (Ser. 12) 2: 111-120.

Fieber, F. X. 1866. Neue Gattungen und Arten in Homoptern (Cicadina Bur.). Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien 16: 497-516.

Fieber, F. X. 1872. Katalog der europäischen Cicadinen, nach Originalien mit Benützung der neuesten Literatur. 19 pp.

Kuznetsova, V. G., A. Maryanska-Nadachowska, and A. F. Emeljanov. 2009. A contribution to the karyosystematics of the planthopper families Dictyopharidae and Fulgoridae (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha). European Journal of Entomology 106(2): 159-170. [Includes Orgerius ventosus.]

Metcalf, Z. P. 1946. General Catalogue of the Homoptera. Fascicle IV Fulgoroidea. Part 8 Dictyopharidae. Smith College, Northhampton, Massachusetts.

Stål, C. 1859. Hemiptera. Species novas descripsit. Fregatten Eugenies Resa. Arkiv for Zoologi 4: 219-298.

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.