A NEW SPECIES OF ORTHAEA, A NEOTROPICAL 
MYODOCHINE GENUS WITH AN UNUSUAL HABITAT 
(HEMIPTERA: LYGAEIDAE: RHYPAROCHROMINAE)* 
By B. J. Harrington 
Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin 
Madison, Wisconsin 53706 
The genus Orthaea, as described by Dallas (1852), was monotypic, 
with O. consuta the type species, and was treated by Stal (1874) as a 
subgenus of Pamera ( Say, 1832). In 1914, Van Duzee argued against 
the use of the generic name Pamera, which Say (1832) had merely 
employed in a faunal list with no type or original species given, and 
suggested Orthaea as the valid generic name for a growing assem- 
blage of myodochine species. In his subsequent catalogue of Hemip- 
tera (Van Duzee, 1917) Pamera Stal ( nec Say, 1832) 1874, 
Plociomerus A & S 1843, Gyndes Stal 1862, and Diplonotus Stal 
1872 were listed as synonyms of Orthaea, which generally persisted 
as the name employed for the group in question until Barber (1939) 
synonymized it with Pachybrachius (Hahn, 1826). Harrington’s 
1980 monograph of the tribe Myodochini recognized the large, 
catch-all genus Pachybrachius as polyphyletic, including several 
genera and representing separate lineages involving three of the four 
male genitalic types for the tribe. In that study (Harrington, 1980), 
the genus Orthaea, with genitalic Type IV, was resurrected from 
synonymy with Pachybrachius and noted to include the type species 
O. consuta and one other species, Orthaea procincta (Breddin) 
(1901). 
The present paper describes a new species, Orthaea alveusincola, 
and provides features to distinguish it and the other two known 
species from each other. Details of the habitat in which the type 
series was collected are provided since this genus apparently occu- 
pies a niche unique for members of the tribe Myodochini. 
All measurements in the following description are in millimeters 
and the Villalobos color chart (Palmer, 1962) has been used as a 
standard. 
* Manuscript received by the editor September 2, 1986. 
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