Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1993, Page 104

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THE LEAFHOPPERS (HOMOPTERA, AUCHENORRHYNCHA) OF THE FAROE ISLANDS
and we managed to collect leafhoppers on
all islands except Kalsoy, Koltur, Hestur,
Stóra and Lítla Dímun. Approximately half
of the time we used sweep-nets, and the rest
of the time we searched the vegetation di-
rectly on all fours. The specimens were
kept deep-frozen until mounted on micro-
pins. The 1989 and 1992 collections, which
comprise app. 750 specimens are kept at
the Museum of Natural History in Tórs-
havn.
On world-basis the total number of
species from a conservative point of view
will probably be around 15.000. But the
Tropics contain many unexplored areas and
as the Tropics are very rich in species the
total number is probably considerably
higher. The number of species fall rapidly
as you move away from the equator: Great
Britain has app. 350 species of which app.
170 have been found in Scotland
(LeQuesne, 1960; 1965; 1969; LeQuesne
and Payne, 1981) while Norway has app.
250 species (Ossiannilsson, 1983). Unfor-
tunately nothing is known about the
leafhoppers on the Orkneys and Shetlands,
while on the other side Iceland has six
species (Olafsson, 1991), five of which
have been found on the Faroes and Green-
land has two species (Trolle, unpubl.).
The nomenclature in this paper follows
Ossiannilsson (1983) and names in brack-
ets refer only to the names used in the Zo-
ology of the Faroes (Henriksen, 1929). In
this work Henriksen mentions six species
from the Faroe Islands, while the present
list comprises 13 species. Thus the number
of species is limited, but the number of in-
dividuals is very high - nevertheless until
now there has been no name for “leafhop-
per” in the Faroese language. Leafhoppers
are spread readily by wind (Giinthart,
1987) or by plant material - the Shetland
and Orkney Islands, The Outer Hebrides,
mainland Scotland and possibly Norway
being the most likely places of origin.
Material and species
FULGOROMORPHA, Delphacidae
1. Javesella pellucida (F.), Figs. 1 and 2.
New to the Faroe Islands. Distribution
map, Fig. 42.
Javesella pellucida is a small easily recog-
nizable species, the males are jet black, the
females brownish yellow. The specimens
from the Faroes (4 males and 1 female) are
Fig. 1: Javesella pellucida (F.) male
Streymoy, Kirkjubøur, - 5 July 1989
Fig. 2: Javesella pellucida (F.) female
Eysturoy, Lamba - 26 July 1989
all brachypters, J. pellucida differs from
most other Delphacidae in the fact, that
macropters are more common than
brachypters. This is certainly the case in
Scandinavia and Great Britain, but not in
Iceland (Lindroth et ai, 1973).