I hope you’ll all take note of the cover photo on the September 2013 issue of The Coleopterists Bulletin (vol. 67, no. 3), which just arrived in my mailbox. It features the adult jewel beetle, Chrysobothris octocola, that I found in September of last year at Gloss Mountains State Park (Woodward Co., Oklahoma) on a dead branch of mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa). That was a significant find, as it proved to be a new state record for Oklahoma. This is the second straight issue of the journal to feature one of my photos (the June 2013 issue featured the beautiful, metallic green weevil, Eurhinus cf. adonis, which I photographed in Argentina on flowers of Chilean goldenrod (Solidago chilensis).
Ironically, there are no articles in this issue about jewel beetles, but there are two articles covering my other main group of interest, the longhorned beetles, including a generic revision of Prionacalus by Antonio Santos-Silva and colleagues and a preliminary checklist of the Cerambycidae and Disteniidae of Alabama by Brian Holt. The Prionacalus revision appears to be everything we have come to expect from a modern taxonomic revision, complete with detailed taxonomic history and descriptions, key to species, and all species figured by line drawings and high quality photographs (including many of the primary types). Like most taxonomic works, it suffers from a lack of associated natural history information—not a fault of the authors, as such information is almost always lacking for all but the commonest of species in the Neotropics. The situation is a little better for Nearctic species, and the Holt checklist, happily, includes basic host plant associations for most of the species found within the state. I’ll be busily updating my database of distributional and host plant records for North American Cerambycidae from this work over the next week.
If you are not already a member of The Coleopterists Society, consider becoming a member. Not only is The Coleopterists Bulletin included with your membership, but you will also gain online access to archival and recent issues of the journal via JSTOR and BioOne.
REFERENCES:
Holt, B. D. 2013. A preliminary checklist of the Cerambycidae and Disteniidae (Coleoptera) of Alabama. The Coleopterists Bulletin 67(3):241–256 [abstract & references].
Santos-Silva, A., Z. Komiya & E. H. Nearns. 2013. Revision of the genus Prionacalus (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Prioninae: Prionini). The Coleopterists Bulletin 67(3):201–240 [abstract & references].
Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013
Beetles In The Bush 
Contratulations. it’s an excellent photo, both technically and aesthetically. By the way, do you have any idea why the Coleopterists Bulletin (and Coleopterists Society, for that matter) don’t use the plural possessive apostrophe with the first word? I have noticed this trend in many places, and I wonder if people drop apostrophes simply because they aren’t sure where to place them. I have spent 36 years as Editor and (currently) Publisher Emeritus of the American Welding Society’s peer-reviewed Welding Journal, and remain active in the magazine business, so I have seen a lot of this kind of thing, but am not sure of its source. I do know that if we called our magazine Welders’ Journal, we would spell it as I do here. Old fart syndrome? — possibly. (I am a beetle guy, too, by avocation.)
Thank you, Jeff!
I’ll have to check my library when I get home, but I believe the journal actually did use the plural possessive apostrophe in their first few years but soon dropped it. I’m glad somebody mentioned it, because now I can admit that it has always bothered the OCD editor in me! I keep straining thinking there might be a way to interpret the title in a way that doesn’t require an apostrophe (as in “Country Roads Journal,” where Country Roads clearly is a subject rather than a possessor) but never get there quite to my satisfaction.
I checked last night—the journal title was “The Coleopterists’ Bulletin” for volumes 1–24, after which the possessive apostrophe was dropped. I wouldn’t even be surprised to learn it was merely an editorial error rather than the result of deliberate discussion by the Executive Board.
Поздравляю! on your cover photo.
Well, it isn’t Oklahoma, but C. octocola is active right now here in southeast Arizona where it is associated with Prosopis.
Best wishes, …
Cпасибо [spʌˈsʲibə], Delbert! I wish we had some cool fall active bups here in the midsection – at least we’ve got some good ‘bycids (e.g., Megacyllene decora) and tigers (e.g., Cicindelidia obsoleta vulturina), neither of which I’ve gotten to see this fall 😦