These have been misidentified as both T.irreperta and T.nuptialis, however the female genitalia of the sp. "Pachmarhi" do not match those of T.irreperta, and while the male nuptialis genitalia is a pretty close match for these sp. "Pachmarhi", again the female genitalia differ.
However, there is a significant issue here... the only rendering we have of the genitalia of T.nuptialis comes from a paper by Grandcolas, and he did not examine the type specimen itself... rather he examined the genitalia of a few individuals from a small area (Chilika Lake). The locality of the type specimen is, unfortunately, unknown. 😩 And as Chih-Ting Hsu pointed out in my conversation with him regarding this situation, there was a species, "Corydia gueriniana", which is now a junior synonym of T.nuptialis. Since the genitalia of that species were never described, we don't really know if that species was correctly synonymized.
This is an issue because the type locality of "C.gueriniana" was originally listed as "Indes orientales; Sangor dans l’intérieur des Indes", which is "Sagar" in Madhya Pradesh nowadays. Sagar is about 150 km from Pachmarhi, which is not very far considering the lack of a significant geographical barrier between those areas, and the fact that adults of these long winged Therea are capable of flight and thus further dispersal than the shorter winged spp.. So chances are that Therea sp. "Pachmarhi" might be conspecific with "Corydia gueriniana", which may or may not have been correctly synonymized with T.nuptialis...
All of this to say, until further work is done on the genus (preferably a thorough revision of T.nuptialis with a comparison between the type specimen and that of the now synonymized "C.gueriniana"), we should simply be labeling these as Therea sp. "Pachmarhi, India", which is what I shall be doing. 😄
I've got mine housed in a well ventilated container with a couple inches of coco fiber, with a little bit of sand and sawdust mixed in, topped with leaf litter. I'm keeping them on a 50/50 humidity gradient, at around 80-85F°. I'm offering dog food as the staple diet, and some apple slices for the adults.
Here are some pictures of my individuals, as well as pictures of the genitalia of sp. "Pachmarhi" courtesy of Chih-Ting Hsu (and figures of the genitalia of nuptialis and irreperta for comparison):
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| Medium nymph |
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| Adult male |
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| Adult female |
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| Adult pair |
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| Phone pics of adult pair |
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| Male sp. "Pachmarhi" genitalia ©️Chih-Ting Hsu |
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| Female sp. "Pachmarhi" genitalia ©️Chih-Ting Hsu |
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| T.nuptialis genitalia (male fig. 14, female fig. 19), & T.irreperta genitalia (female bottom) |
It will be interesting to see what these end up being identified as in the future! But for now, whatever they are, I can definitely say they are an absolutely stunning new addition to culture, and one I hope will breed well for me over the coming months! 😍
Anyways, thanks for reading this post, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
