Abstract
Philaenus tesselatus Melichar, 1899, was described more than a century ago, originally from Tunisia, but later appeared to be a problematic species. In 1959, it was reduced to a geographic subspecies of the closely related P. spumarius (Linnaeus, 1758), with which in 1972 it was synonymized. However, P. tesselatus does possess constant species-level characters. We have found that: (i) both species occur in Portugal, where P. tesselatus is statistically significantly larger than P. spumarius; (ii) the best diagnostic characters are the appendages of the male aedeagus (larger in P. tesselatus than in P. spumarius); (iii) in Portugal, P. spumarius seems to occur in large numbers north of Lisbon, becoming rare in the south, while P. tesselatus occurs only south of Lisbon; and (iv) the six colour morphs appear to be identical in both species. We do not know if the two species hybridize where they occur sympatrically.References
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