Discovery in leaf litter: Exploring the systematics of Porcelloderes Rédei, and Epiroderinae (Hemiptera:Reduviidae)

Porcelloderes impenetrabilis Rédei, 2012 is a recently described cryptic African species (Rédei 2012) of small, apterous, camouflaged, leaf litter dwelling assassin bugs. The species was described from two mountain ranges in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania. These “sky islands” are well known for being home to hundreds of endemic species. While species are typically restricted to single mountain ranges, species in some groups are shared between ranges. Given the small size (4.5-5mm), geographic isolation, and aptery of Porcelloderes, it is questionable if the newly acquired Porcelloderes specimens are the same species as Porcelloderes impenetrabilis. Porcelloderes was previously hypothesized to form the earliest diverging lineage within the subfamily Epiroderinae based on morphology (Hwang and Weirauch, 2017), but it was suspected that the modified wing and pronotal structure in that species may have biased this phylogenetic placement. Following the combined morphological and molecular analysis of 241 Porcelloderes specimens from 3 different localities of the Eastern Arc Mountains, it was resolved that Porcelloderes is not the earliest diverging lineage in Epiroderinae and has revealed an additional undescribed species of the genus. Additional sampling and morphological analysis are needed to synonymize and strengthen relationships within the subfamily Epiroderinae.