West Indian Flatid Planthopper, Melormenis basalis in Florida

West Indian flatid planthopper (Melormenis basalis (Walker 1851)) (Fig.1) was found in Florida for the first time in Miami-Dade County in 1997 by Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry (DPI) inspector James R. Martin. The species was known previously only from Puerto Rico and the Leeward Islands (Fennah 1965) and Hawaii (Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA) specimens from 1988). This species is established in southern Florida and now is known from Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, Collier, Hendry and Lee counties. There is no record from Monroe County, but the species presumably occurs there. The species is known to DPI inspectors as “Puerto Rican planthopper.”

There is some confusion surrounding the scientific name of this bug. Originally, it was described as Cicada quadripunctata Fabricius 1794; however, Kirkaldy (1909) discovered that there was another species with the same name: Cicada quadripunctata De Villers 1789, and De Villers’ (1789) use of the name predates Fabricius (1794). By 1909, the genus had become Ormenis, but the problem in the original genus (Cicada) rendered the species name quadripunctata invalid. Thus, Kirkaldy (1909) proposed a new name, Melormenis antillarum Kirkaldy for the bug (Metcalfe 1957, p 329-332). Later, it was discovered by Fennah (1965) that M. antillarum was the same insect as Flatoides basalis Walker 1851. Walker’s (1851) name predates Kirkaldy’s (1909), so the correct name became Melormenis basalis (Walker 1851). To further confuse the issue, there was also a Melormenis basalis Caldwell 1951, also from Puerto Rico. It was moved to the genus Capistra, also by Fennah (1965). Since the move of Caldwell’s M. basalis to Capistra precedes the transfer of Walker’s F. basalis to Melormenis (by half a page of text!), there is no homonym problem according to Fennah (1965), but also see comments by Bartlett (2014).