Orestes guangxiensis

Appearance

So far only females are known of ''Orestes guangxiensis''. In 2005 Paul D. Brock and Masaya Okada mistakenly described males of this species from Japanese island Miyako-jima. George Ho Wai-Chun assigned this to ''Pylaemenes japonicus'' described by him in 2016 .

The females are 40 to 50 millimetres long and stocky in shape. Their basic color is usually a light beige or brown, which is complemented by almost white, brown and black patterns. The body surface is covered with small, mostly black tubercles. In the middle of the otherwise flat upper side of the thorax a weak carina can be seen. The comparatively short mesonotum is 2.5 times as long as the pronotum and thus significantly shorter than in longer species such as ''Orestes mouhotii'' or ''Orestes shirakii''. On the forehead that becomes narrower towards the top, the four elevations form two edges that converge towards the tip of the forehead, which when viewed from the front form a triangle. The abdomen becomes significantly wider up to the middle and is also strongly raised laterally up to the middle in egg-laying females. Tubercles can be found on the posterior lateral area of the third to fifth tergite of the abdomen other species is missing in the females of ''Orestes guangxiensis''.

Distribution

The distribution area extends over the Chinese provinces Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan and the autonomous region Guangxi, as well as the Special administrative regions of China Hong Kong. The animals found in Taiwan are now included in ''Orestes shirakii''. The population, of which males are mostly known, were identified as ''Orestes japonicus''.

Reproduction

The nocturnal insects, like all members of the genus, are able to achieve an almost perfect phytomimesis by aligning legs and antennae along the body and so hardly from a short broken branch are to be distinguished. ''Orestes guangxiensis'' is capable of parthenogenesis. So far, only females have been found at many sites. About six weeks after the moult to imago the females begin to lay one to three eggs per week. These have a length and width of about 3 millimetres and a height of almost 2 millimetres . They are more curved on the dorsal side and have short hairs ending with barbs. The micropylar plate has three arms, one of which points towards the lid, while the other two run circularly around the egg. The eggs are laid on the ground or near the ground. Eggs are often clamped in bark or pinned to mosses. After an average of four months, the nymphs hatch, which have clear carinae along the middle and edges of the body and already have the high and pointed forehead typical of the species which also do not have a flat head in adulthood. It takes a good year for them to grow into adults. Older nymphs are often more contrasting and colorful than adult females. They are often red-brown tones.