Abstract
The presence of the same general structure and vestiture, an overall similarity in coloration with merely a few minor differences, a broad range of intraspecific variation with several intermediate color varieties forms, and the similar structure of the male genitalia in three Neotropical species of Brontostoma Kirkaldy, 1904 (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Ectrichodiinae) led to the hypothesis that all of them represent a single species, resulting in the following newly proposed subjective synonymies: B. basalis (Stål, 1859) = B. sanguinosum (Stål, 1872), syn. nov. = B. pallitarsis (Walker, 1873), syn. nov. The male genitalia of another nominal species, B. infensum Wygodzinsky, 1951, showed a set of differences which are judged to sufficiently support the recognition of it as a separate species. Intraspecific morphological and color variations of B. basalis are documented and discussed, and this species is recorded from French Guiana for the first time.
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