Talk:Formiscurra indicus

A fact from Formiscurra indicus appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 July 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Formiscurra indicus (pictured), a caliscelid planthopper with ant-mimicking males, was described only in 2011?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2013/July.

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Why so long undescribed?[edit]

Since the insect has been collected at so many sites, is there any published suggestion whyit eluded discovery so long?--Wetman (talk) 21:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No published suggestion but I know the second author of the species and several of the original collectors of the early specimens personally. Entomologists working outside of the Victorian collection hubs (the Natural History Museum, Smithsonian, AMNH and similar other collections such as those in France) are severely handicapped in that they never can quite tell if something they see has already been described and it takes a lot of time to even figure out the specialists in a particular group (and make contact, and all these that have become enormously easier in the Internet era). The second author is an expert on the Oriental Cicadellidae and although he held specimens of related groups, it takes a specialist on the group (the first author in this case) to actually put things in perspective, describe the new species using group-specific terminology and so on. Shyamal (talk) 10:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Female photo?[edit]

I think that this article could probably benefit from a photo of a female of the species. One of its main traits is that the males mimic ants and the females do not. This is not very well shown the the article currently, which has three photos of males and none of females. Zell Faze (talk) 22:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that. And regarding Wetman's question "why was this species undiscovered for so long?" I would hazard the guess that collectors did not realize that this was a single species, and were looking for females that matched the males, and vice versa, before formally publishing a description. I think that is a marvellous question. 72.177.123.145 (talk) 00:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)Eric[reply]

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