Pentatomidae fauna of India

Cimex furcellatus Wolff, 1811

Arma armigera Herrich-Schäffer, 1844

Eocanthecona armiger (Herrich-Schäffer, 1844)

Canthecona furcellata Dallas, 1851

Cantheconidea furcellata Schouteden, 1907

Eocanthecona furcellata Bergroth, 1915

Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomidae: Asopinae

• Fore tibiae moderately dilated, with sharp and stout spine on foretibiae, at one third from apex
• Pronotum with anterolateral margins sinuate and crenulate; posterior angles usually with small, sharp, hook-like process
• Humeri developed into moderately elongate bispinose process, with anterior one acute and elongate and posterior one is short and blunt
• Abdominal sternum of males with pilose glands.
• Basal abdominal sternite with short, stout tubercle, in apposition to metasternal process.

Genital capsule with dorsal rim broadly and deeply concave, ventral rim broadly and shallowly concave; paramere with crown moreorless triangular; a pair of basally fused process of aedeagus; aedeagus short and stout.

Apical receptacle of spermatheca large, orbicular without any finger-like processes.

Egg period: 7-8 days. 5 instars and total life cycle is around 30 days.

Feeds on larvae of Hyblaea puera and Antheraea mylitta (Kirkaldy, 1909)

This is the most common predatory pentatomid species available in nature.

Wolff, J. F. (1811). Icones Cimicum descriptionibus illustratae. Vol. 5. Johann Jacob Palm, Erlangen, pp. 167-208, pls. 17-20.

Atkinson, E. T. (1888). Notes on Indian Rhynchota, Heteroptera No. 3 & 4. Journal of The Asiatic Society of Bengal, 57, 1-72, 118-184, 333-345.

Distant, W. L. (1902). Rhynchota Vol.I, Heteroptera. In: Blanford, W. T. (Ed). The Fauna of British India Including Ceylon and Burma. Taylor and Francis, London. 307+438 pp.

Chatterjee, N. C. (1934). Entomological investigations on the spike disease of sandal (24). Pentatomidae (Hemipt.). Ind. For. Rec., 20, 1-31.

Hegde, V. (1995). Heteroptera (Insecta) from the Eastern Ghats, India. Occ. Paper Rec. Zool. Surv. India No. 168: 14-39.

Salini, S (2006). Faunistic studies on Pentatomidae (Hemiptera: Pentatomoidea) in Karnataka. M. Sc. Thesis, Department of Agricultural Entomology, University of Agricultural sciences, Bangalore. (Unpublished)

Salini, S and Viraktamath, C. A. (2015). Genera of Pentatomidae (Hemiptera: Pentatomoidea) from south India–An illustrated key to genera and checklist of  species. Zootaxa, 3924 (1): 1–76.

Thomas, D. B. (1994). Taxonomic synopsis of old the world Asopine genera (Heteroptera: Pentstomidae). Insecta Mundi., 8(3-4), 145-212.