copied from http://www.redpav-fpolar.info.ve/entomol/v05/0501b001.html (January 10, 2007)
Genus Nastonotus I. Bolívar, 1890
Three species are currently recognized in this genus (Beier, 1960, 1963), one from Colombia and two from Venezuela (one of these also from Curacao). As none is well known and the differences used to separate them seem largely to be a matter of relative tegminal length, I prefer to record the following specimen as a member of the type-species, although it differs in certain minor features from descriptions of this.
Nastonotus tarsatus I. Bolívar, 1890
This species was described from Caracas and Valencia, Venezuela, though the latter locality was omitted by Beier (1960). The specimen below agrees with the original and subsequent descriptions of the male, insofar as they go, except that the tegmina and hind wings slightly surpass the abdomen instead of stopping short at the 8th tergum (this is not merely a matter of the present specimen having a contracted abdomen as the tegmina are longer than described (23 against 18, for a body-length of 30 mm). It is almost certain, however, that this character is quite variable, though comparable tegminal lengths are supposedly characteristic for the Colombian N. foreli Carl, 1921 (a species which seems to vary considerably in size). In the third species, N. reductus (Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1895), from western Venezuela, the wings are said to be much shorter. The male cerci of this genus are very characteristic, being heavy, with an elongate dorsolateral process before the middle and an extremely long, fine, curved, whiplike, apical spine. The terminalia of the male type of N. tarsatus are, unfortunately partly damaged and the cerci lack their dorsolateral processes. In N. foreli these are finger-like and in N. reductus they are said to be tubular (Beier 1960), whereas in the present specimen, they are neither, but are strongly elongate-conical, more or less straight, that on the right cercus being comparable in length with that shown by Carl (1921) and Beier (1960) for N. foreli, but not so finger-like, while that on the left cercus is reduced in size and appears somewhat deformed. Furthermore, the greatly elongate apical spines of the cerci of the present specimen are even longer than shown in the figures of Carl and Beier (IL cc.); how they compare with those of the other two species I cannot say, except that the original descriptions stress their length. Whatever the status of the other two species, I believe that the following specimen most probably belongs to N. tarsatus. In this specimen it may be noted that the frons, even after preservation, is rather bright green, except for being narrowly margined black ventrally. This is yet another example of what seems to be quite a common phenomenon in Cocconotini (a protective coloration of the front of the head as it faces upwards from a place of concealment among tightly packed, elongate foliage which hides the rest of the insect), but a character which, though perhaps not universally present in any given species, usually fades to obscurity on preservation. The specimen bears the following data: VENEZUELA, (Estado) Cojedes, Hato Mataclara, 60°30'E., 9°S., 12.VII. 1981, (D.) Otte et al. No. 11 (In the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, U.S.A.)
The specimen also bears Dr. G.M. Hewitt's cytological preparation number, V.81.
