A re-assessment of the Poecilimon syriacus group (Orthoptera Tettigonioidea, Phaneropteridae) based on bioacoustics, morphology and molecular data

In this paper a combination of characters is described by which Poecilimon species (Orthoptera, Tettigonioidea, Phaneropteridae) can be recognised as members of the P. syriacus group. All species occur in or around Anatolia – from the island of Samos in the West and the provinces of Artvin and Bitlis in the East to Jerusalem in the South. The molecular data (Ullrich 2007) suggest the following not completely resolved relationship (ersisi (syriacus, (karakushi, (angulatus, obtusicercus n. sp.)), (xenocercus, karabukensis), ((izmirensis, ege) serratus))), while P. uvarovi and P. adentatus as well as P. kutahiensis (molecular data missing) are also considered to belong to the group according to song and/or morphology. The morphological data previously used to define the group are not sufficient to recognize all of its members. Some species differed distinctly in the structure of male genitalia, but the calling songs of all species studied are characterized by an unusually high syllable repetition rate and low number of impulses per syllable. Thus the evolution of genitalia seems to be faster than that of song patterns.