EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGYENTOMOLOGY ISSN (online): 1802-8829 Eur. J. Entomol. 114: 587–602, 2017 http://www.eje.cz doi: 10.14411/eje.2017.072 ORIGINAL ARTICLE A comparative study of the abdominal trichobothria of Trichophora, with emphasis on Lygaeoidea (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) CUIQING GAO 1, 2, DÁVID RÉDEI 2, *, XUEQIN SHI 2, BO CAI 3, KE LIANG 1, SHUO GAO 1 and WENJUN BU 2, * 1 Co-Innovation Center for the Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China; e-mails:
[email protected],
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[email protected] Key words. Hemiptera, Heteroptera, Trichophora, Lygaeoidea, abdominal trichobothria, morphology, systematics Abstract. Members of the clade Trichophora (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomomorpha) have trichobothria on their abdominal sterna. There is no comparative study of the fi ne structure of abdominal trichobothria in the group and until now the trichobothria of their immatures were virtually unknown. The fi ne structure of the abdominal trichobothrial complex (= the trichobothrium and its associated structures) of adults of 98 species belonging to 25 families in 5 superfamilies and larvae of 7 species belonging to 7 families in 2 superfamilies of Trichophora were examined using scanning electron microscopy. This study indicates that the fi ne structure of the abdominal trichobothria is very variable and useful for determining evolutionary lineages within the clade.