''Anhanga'' is a genus of Brazilian

shield bugs The Pentatomoidea are a superfamily of insects in the suborder Heteroptera of the order Hemiptera. As hemipterans, they possess a common arrangement of sucking mouthparts. The roughly 7000 species under Pentatomoidea are divided into 21 familie ...

, erected by

William Lucas Distant William Lucas Distant (12 November 1845 Rotherhithe – 4 February 1922 Wanstead) was an English entomologist. Biography Early years Distant was born in Rotherhithe, the son of whaling captain Alexander Distantspecies:B.R. Subba Rao, Rao, B.R ...

in 1887.

Taxonomy

Originally described from the subfamily Discocephalinae ( Discocephalini), ''Anhanga'' was reassigned by a 2016 study to the

Pentatominae Pentatominae is a subfamily of Pentatomidae, a family of shield bugs. This subfamily is the largest one within the Pentatomidae, having 4937 species classified in 938 genera. Species in this subfamily are phytophages and several of them are consid ...

subfamily. ''Anhanga'' is rare in museums with four specimens in total, and had not been evaluated since its description by Distant in 1887. ''Anhanga'''s general and genital morphology aligns best with '' Galedanta'', another

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

pentatomine shield bug. Mutually aligned features include a medium-sized to large body covered in punctures, mandibular plates rounded at apex which are convergent and longer than clypeus, and scutellum bearing foveae. Females bear finger-like processes, with males possessing a projected 'V-shaped' ventral rim of the pygophore. However, ''Anhanga'' can be distinguished by the rounded lateral angles of the anterolateral margin of

pronotum The prothorax is the foremost of the three segments in the thorax of an insect, and bears the first pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the pronotum (dorsal), the prosternum (ventral), and the propleuron (lateral) on e ...

crenulate along the anterior half of specimens.

Ecology

''Anhanga'' is endemic to the moist ranges of Atlantic forest in

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, ; ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative units of Brazil#List, fifth-most populous state and the List of Brazilian s ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, and the

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

References

Hemiptera of South America Carpocorini Pentatomidae genera {{Pentatomidae-stub