Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1993, Side 114

118
THE LEAFHOPPERS (HOMOPTERA, AUCHENORRHYNCHA) OF THE FAROE ISLANDS
Fig. 19: Macrosteles alpinus (Zett.) male
Mykines, Mykineshólmur - 27 August 1992
Fig. 20: Macrosteles alpinus (Zett.) female
Mykines, Djúpidalur - 28 August 1992
especially in the females, and the caudal
spots represented by a pair of small spots or
absent (Figs. 40 and 41), pronotum, scutel-
lum and forewings greenish-yellowish
without markings. Aedeagus (Fig. 38) and
the second abdominal stemum (Fig. 39) in
the male are typical of that of M. alpinus
(Zett.).
M. alpinus is found on Mykines and on
Mykineshólmur, in the infielđ around the
hamlet and everywhere in the outfield on
the westem half of Mykines, which was as
far as we managed to collect leafhoppers in
the few days, we stayed on the island.
M. alpinus is found in Scotland and is
widespread in Norway, but not known from
Iceland. It possibly feeds on grasses, but
has also been associated with Juncus
squarrosus L. (LeQuesne, 1969), which is
widespread on the Faroes, but not found on
Mykines (Hansen, 1966) and Menyanthes
trifoliata L. (Linnavuori, 1952), which on
the Faroes has only been found on Vágar,
Streymoy, Sandoy and Suðuroy (Hansen,
1966). The isolated presence of M. alpinus
on Mykines could indicate a human intro-
duction, and the species must have been on
Mykines for a very long time in order to
differ morphologically so much from the
typical species. The fact that we did not
find M. ossiannilssoni or M. laevis, which
are otherwise everpresent, may be due to
interspecifíc competition, but the question
of the host plants of the Macrosteles
species on the Faroe Islands needs further
investigation in order to try and explain the
distribution of the species.