Bioacoustics of Roeseliana

Diagnosis. Tenth tergite of male with very broad anal segment, rounded cerci and short ovipositor are useful characters to separate Roeseliana from Metrioptera and Bicolorana Zeuner, 1941 ; with the latter Roeseliana shares the female subgenital plate not touching the ovipositor. Ovipositor— Figs. 1–2 , Table 2 The shape of the ovipositor is fairly variable, but we could find taxa/populations with fine ovipositor ( R. pylnovi , R. roeselii , R. azami minor from Lombardy , Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna , R. ambitiosa ), and those with deeper ovipositor ( R. azami , R. azami minor from Tuscany and Marche , R. brunneri and R. bispina ). However, the ovipositor angle resulted also variable in the different taxa/populations, smaller in R. pylnovi , R. oporina , R. azami , R. azami minor from Lombardy , Piedmont , Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany , R. brunneri and R. bispina , bigger in others, namely R. roeselii , R. azami minor from Marche and R. ambitiosa . Stridulatory file— Fig. 3 , Table 2 We describe preliminary the stridulatory file of different taxa/populations, that are very similar in their structure ( Fig. 3 ). The length is ca. 1.2 mm , while the depth may range from 0.20 to 0.35 mm . Stridulatory file is a little arched, the total number of teeth ranges between 40 and 80 ( R. brunneri : ca. 70–80 with 15 central larger; R. azami minor from Tuscany : ca. 50 with 15 central larger; R. azami minor from Piedmont : ca. 40, with 15 central larger; R. azami : ca. 45, more or less of the same size; R. roeselii : ca. 50, with 12–13 central larger teeth; R. ambitiosa : ca. 50 with at least 40 teeth of more or less the same size and a few very small teeth in the proximal part; R. bispina : ca. 60, more or less of the same size; R. pylnovi : ca. 50, with 12–13 central larger). Generally, the stridulatory file in its proximal part bears very small teeth (about 15–20), dense, decreasing in size and evenly spaced, the central part is composed of ca. 12–15 widely spaced larger teeth (with some exceptions, like in R. azami , R. bispina and R. ambitiosa ), the distal part is composed of about 8–10 very small teeth. The differences are noted in Table 2 . Female subgenital plate— Figs. 8 , 9 , Table 2 The ratio length to width of the female subgenital plate resulted to be maximum in R. pylnovi (2.8), followed by that of R. roeselii (2.0–2.1), R. azami minor from Marche (2.1–2.2), R. oporina (1.8), R. azami minor from Lombardy , Piedmont and Emilia–Romagna (1.8–2.2), R. brunneri (1.7–1.9), R. azami (1.7), R. azami minor from Tuscany (1.7), R. bispina (1.7) and R. ambitiosa (1.5). However, other differences in the shape of the apical tips of the subgenital plate are evident.