Sinchocoris Dougherty 1995

Genus Sinchocoris Dougherty, 1995

Among the modifications of the morphology of fore femora among New World Ectrichodiinae, the development of a ventral cleft, lined with denticles [papillae sensu Forthman et al. 2016, see below] and/or hairs [setae] was re- corded by Dougherty (1995). The fore tibia is correspondingly concave as if used with the fore femora to encircle and grasp the prey (Dougherty 1995). She described four Neotropical genera, i.e., Cryptonannus Dougherty, 1995, Doblepardocoris Dougherty, 1995, Sinchocoris Dougherty, 1995, and Wygodzinskyocoris Dougherty, 1995 with a ventral cleft in fore femora and considered the cleft a synapomorphy of the clade comprising these genera. Sinchocoris is separated from the other three by the following combination of characters: coloration with a combination of dark and light brown (opposed to uniformly black); head elongate in lateral view (head length greater than head height); abdominal sternites lacking heavy punctuation (Dougherty 1995, Gil-Santana et al. 2015). Additional characteristics of Sinchocoris were provided in the generic description provided by Dougherty (1995). Most of these are noteworthy to mention, such as: size: 7–10 mm; body surface smooth, faint punctuation on abdominal sternum, face and legs setose; clypeus rounded; antenna with eight [apparent] segments; antennal segments I and II subequal in length; length ratio of visible labial segments: 5:3:1; pronotal surface smooth, midlongitudinal furrow reduced to series of punctuations, obsolete anteriorly and posteriorly, posterolateral furrows a series of punctuations, transverse furrow crossed by canaliculae; scutellum with two short distal prongs, slightly curved medially; fore femora strongly incrassate, middle femur less so, ventral margin of both with denticles [papillae] and fringes of hairs [setae]; inner surface of fore tibia lined with stiff setae; spongy fossae present on fore and middle tibiae, moderately developed, at least one quarter the length of fore tibia; canaliculae between sternites II–III (Dougherty 1995).

Sinchocoris currently contains two species, S. colombiensis Dougherty, 1995 (Figs. 6–9) and S. panamensis Dougherty, 1995 (Figs. 10–13) (Dougherty 1995, Gil-Santana et al. 2015).

The specific names of the above two species were not spelled uniformly by Dougherty (1995). The names occurred invariably as S. colombiensis and S. panamensis in the text, but they were spelled as S. colombiaensis and S. panamaensis in the captions of her figs. 18 and 19B–E. The latter spellings appear also on the type labels of the respective holotypes (Figs. 7, 11). The spellings S. colombiensis and S. panamensis are hereby fixed as the correct original spelling acting as First Reviser (ICZN, Art. 24.2.3).

Dougherty (1995) claimed that a fringe of setae and papillae is present on the middle tibia of Sinchocoris species. A re-examination of photos of the holotypes of these two species (Figs. 8–9, 12–13) revealed that a fringe of setae is present only in the middle femora of S. panamensis (Figs. 12–13), while in S. colombiensis, although the middle femora have numerous long scattered setae in all surfaces (Figs. 8–9), there is not an evident ventral fringe of setae. The papillae are restricted approximately to the basal third of the middle tibiae in both species, but are somewhat more numerous in S. panamensis (Fig. 13) than in S. colombiensis (Fig. 9).