Systematic Study On The Insects Of Conophyminae From Eurasia (Orthoptera: Acridoidea)

The subfamily Conophyminae established in 1975 by Dirsh, belonging to the family Catantopidae, Acridoidea, Caelifera, Orthoptera, distributed in mountanious region and plateau. The main characters of Conophyminae were tegmina and wings in both sexes wanting and upper carinula of hind femur smooth, not serrated. Up to the present, the study of Conophyminae was rather poor, especially lacked the systematic study. On the basis of the works of many experts previously, specimens, photo of type specimens and a great deal of literature, the systematic study on the field of Eurasia was carried out. This paper is composed of two parts.The first part includes five chapters. In chapter one, the taxonomic status, taxonomic history, general research situation and the significance of the study on Conophyminae were reviewed. In chapter two, morphology and the main characters of Conophyminae were introduced in detail, and some chromophotographs and illustrations were provided. In chapter three, based on the morphological study, so far,25 genera and 189 species are described in the Eurasia, including 2 new genus and 1 new species:Eokingdonella gen. nov. and Guizhouacris Yin & Li,2006, Guizhouacris xiai Yin & Li,2006. Because of adapting environment, the body was evolved a style of one's own that tegmina and wings absent, tympanum degenerated, even absent in some taxa, body diminished and arolium of tarsus enlarged. Based on the evolution of tympanum, we concluded that the taxa which tympanum developed were primordial, which tympanum degenerated were more evolutionary and which tympanum absent were most evolutionary.In chapter four, a cladistic analysis of phylogenic relationships among 25 genus of Eurasian Conophyminae were performed using 34 characters from external morphology. The results indicate that the Conophyminae is a monophyletic group, and the evolutionary relationships among genus are consistent mostly with that of the conclusion from evolutionary systematic study. In chapter five, the distributing patterns and the characteristics of faunal components of Conophyminae in Eurasia have been discussed. The result shows that the percent of genus and species of the Palearctic realm elements are 80.0% and 92.1%, the percent of Oriental realm elements are 20.0% and 7.9%. Middle Asia elements predominate in Palearctic realm's, they are 36.0% and 69.8% of known genus and species.The second part,25 genera and 189 species of Conophyminae in Eurasia are recorded, the documents, synonyms, distributions of each genus and species are listed, and the Chinese names of both all genera and species distributed in China are given. Keys to all genera are drawn up. During this study,2 genera and 1 species are described as new in science. Of which, Guizhouacris Yin & Li,2006 and Guizhouacris xiai Yin & Li,2006 were published on the Zootaxa,1177:51-55 in April 2006.