This is a straight up identification challenge. Can you identify the order (duh!), family, genus, and species? Total body length of the subject is ~20 mm. Answers revealed in a couple of days or so, with comments moderated until that time to allow all who wish a chance to participate.
© Ted C. MacRae 2014
Mallodon dasystomus | southeast Missouri (Mississippi Co.)
Today’s (slightly belated) edition of “One-shot Wednesday” features a beetle that I saw just about this time last year while blacklighting along the Mississippi River in the southeastern lowlands of Missouri. Mallodon dasystomus¹ is a prionid longhorned beetle (family Cerambycidae, subfamily Prioninae) that is sometimes called the “hardwood stump borer”. It is perhaps one of the most widely distributed members of its group, occurring across the southern tier of the U.S. down through Mexico and Central America as far as northern South America.
¹ Until recently the specific epithet was consistently misspelled in most of the literature as “dasytomus“. A closer look at the Greek root words dasus (δασύς), meaning “hairy”, and stoma (στόμα), meaning “mouth”, shows the misspelling to be nonsensical. I, myself, am guilty of using the wrong spelling in my checklist of Missouri longhorned beetles (MacRae 1994), although I can claim to have been “going with the flow”.
Despite the beetle’s wide geographical range, I searched for it both eagerly and unsuccessfully during the 1980s as I was gathering data for my checklist of Missouri longhorned beetles (MacRae 1994). I eventually published that checklist and included the species on the basis of a few specimens seen in other collections, but I never encountered it for myself until some years later during a visit to Cave Creek Canyon in southeast Arizona. As noted by Linsley et al. (1961), this species is common there and is associated with large, partially dead Arizona sycamores (Platanus wrightii). Although nearly 20 years ago, I still recall seeing the large beetles crawling high up on the trunks and sitting in their emergence holes with only their massively-mandibled heads protruding as they tantalizingly waved their antennae about.
That experience would directly lead to my eventually finding this species for myself in Missouri. Shortly after returning to the state in the mid-90s, I was driving along a road in the state’s southeastern lowlands when I passed a very large, half-dead American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis). Even at a speed of 40 mph I could see the large emergence holes that immediately reminded me of what I had seen in Arizona, so I hit the brakes, made a quick U-turn, and came back to look at the tree a little more closely. I was convinced the holes were made by this species, and my hunch was proven when I eventually found several beetle carcasses on the ground around the base of the tree. I returned the following weekend with a chainsaw, cut several one-cubic-foot sections of wood from the dead portion of the massive tree’s trunk (with landowner permission), and eventually reared a nice series of adults from the wood. Having uncovered the association of this species with sycamore in the state, I was able to find the species also in several other locations in southeastern Missouri, but I have not managed to find the species in any areas north of the southeastern lowlands in Missouri despite the common occurrence of the host tree.
The beetle in the above photograph landed on the foliage of a large silver maple (Acer saccharinum) next to the ultraviolet light I had setup in wet bottomland forest along the Mississippi River, and wanting to ensure that I got at least one in situ photo of the beetle that is where I shot it. I did try to move it to the trunk of a large, dead sycamore nearby for a more realistically representative photo of how these beetles are usually encountered, but the beetle became quite agitated when I moved it and my considerable patience was never rewarded. I popped it into a vial in hopes of photographs the next morning, but conditions were not to the beetle’s liking and it expired before I had another chance to photograph it. Just the other night I setup a blacklight in a spot not too far from where I saw this beetle in hopes of getting another chance to photograph it. That effort was not successful, but I did find a longhorned beetle species that I had not seen in nearly 30 years! I was successful in photographing that species but (please excuse the teaser) will save those photos for a future post.
REFERENCES:
Linsley, E. G., J. N. Knull & M. Statham. 1961. A List of Cerambycidae from the Chiricahua Mountain Area, Cochise County, Arizona (Coleoptera). American Museum Novitates 2050:1–34 [full text, pdf].
MacRae, T. C. 1994. Annotated checklist of the longhorned beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae and Disteniidae) known to occur in Missouri. Insecta Mundi 7(4) (1993):223–252 [pdf].
© Ted C. MacRae 2014
Most species in the genus Crossidius exhibit varying amounts of yellow/red/orange coloration on the body. However, one species—Crossidius ater—dispenses with such adornments and remains all-black throughout its expansive range across the Great Basin and surrounding areas. Despite this, they are no less pretty than their more gaudily colored relatives. The adults in these photos were seen on flowers of yellow rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus) at two locations in White Pine County, Nevada on 30 August 2013 (all photos w/ natural sky background).
Crossidius ater | 7.2 mi SW NV318 on US6, White Pine Co., Nevada.
Crossidius ater | Ely, 1.2 mi S Jct US6/50/93, White Pine Co., Nevada.
Crossidius ater | Ely, 1.2 mi S Jct US6/50/93, White Pine Co., Nevada.
© Ted C. MacRae 2014
Call me biased, but for my money few groups of beetles can match the maddening combination of beauty and difficult taxonomy of jewel beetles (family Buprestidae) (I can already hear the protestations of weevil and scarab workers). In the case of jewel beetles, much of the difficulty is due to a propensity for hyperdiverse genera. For example, in North and Central America more than half of the nearly 2,000 described species belong to just three genera—Acmaeodera, Chrysobothris, and Agrilus. It’s enough to make many a casual coleopterist throw their hands in the air and ship their specimens off to “specialists” for identification. This is, strangely, for me part of their attraction. Any reasonably serious effort to study jewel beetles over a period of time is sure to uncover a wealth of new data, from previously unknown hosts associations and distributions to the alpha taxonomist’s raison d’être—new species!
Chrysobothris seminole on its host, Chrysoma pauciflosculosa.
One of the more problematic jewel beetle groups is the “Chrysobothris femorata species-group”. For many years, these abundant and conspicuous members of forest and landscape ecosystems have confounded collectors, foresters, and extension entomologists alike. A recent revision of the group by Stan Wellso and Gary Manley (Wellso & Manley 2007) has done much to improve the situation through the description of several new species and clarification of the hosts, distributions, and identifying characters of previously known species. I have benefited more than many from their work, since during the 25 years leading up to that work I had collected large numbers of specimens assignable to this group and was fortunate to have this material examined by Stan and Gary and included in the type series of most of the new species they described. Having in my collection series of nearly all of the known species in this group greatly facilitates identification of specimens received for identification and the recognition of any new species that might come my way. Notice, however, that I said “nearly” all of the known species—there were two species described in that work that I did not have examples of; C. seminole from Georgia and Florida and C. mescalero from New Mexico and west Texas. Happily, I can now say that only C. mescalero is still missing from my collection.
Chrysomoa pausiflosculosa (woody goldenrod) | Emanuel Co., Georgia.
Chrysobothris seminole is unique in the group by its association not with deciduous hardwood trees, but rather the stems and root crowns of living woody goldenrod (Chrysomoa pauciflosculosa), a member of the aster family (Asteraceae). This plant is not a true goldenrod (genus Solidago), although they are in the same family, but is named such for the profusion of yellow inflorescences that appear during fall and resemble those of goldenrod. However, unlike goldenrod, woody goldenrod is a perennial plant with a woody root crown and stems from which new growth emerges each year. Woody goldenrod is restricted to coastal dunes and sand scrub habitats in the U.S. southeastern coastal plain, although the beetle itself has only been found in a few locations in Florida and southeastern Georgia. The beetle was first collected in numbers by Roy Morris and Edwin Donaldson, who reared adults from woody goldenrod root crowns they had collected in an effort to rear adults of another wood-boring beetle; this one in the family Cerambycidae and also undescribed and restricted to woody goldenrod. That beetle was recently described as Crossidius grahami Morris & Wappes, 2013.
Adults are found primarily on lower stems of living plants.
In late May of this year, I made the 13½-hour drive from St. Louis to Emanuel Co., Georgia to visit the type locality of C. seminole and try my hand at finding this species. Along the way I met up with two excellent beetle collectors in Tennessee; Joshua Basham and Nadeer Youssef. Josh and Nadeer are among the few people who have succeeded in collecting this species, having visited the type locality during the previous two years and managing to collect a small series of adults. Their experience proved to be invaluable, as we saw only three individuals during our two days in the area. Josh saw the first soon after we arrived at the type locality and was kind enough to let me see it in situ on its host plant and make the collection, and Nadeer was equally kind to give me the third individual we saw. Our consensus was that a combination of early timing and lack of rain was the reason for their scarcity, and to hedge our bets we collected a number of plants that showed evidence of buprestid (as well as cerambycid) larval workings in the lower stems and root crowns to attempt rearing additional specimens. Because of their scarcity, I kept the adults alive and photographed them later that night in a more secure “studio” setting, and while this species has been photographed before I do believe that the photographs presented here are the only photos of live individuals.
Sand scrub habitat | Emanuel Co., Georgia.
In addition to its unique host plant association and restricted distribution, C. seminole can be distinguished from other members of the C. femorata species-group by both sexes having the frons and clypeus uniformly brown (in most other species of the group the frons and clypeus are variously colored, often brightly so in males of the species). The one other species with both males and females also exhbiting a uniformly brown frons and clypeus is C. mescalero (now the only species still lacking in my collection), which Wellso & Manley (2007) distinguished from C. seminole by having three distinct elytral costae (C. seminole has two indistinct costae), its indistinct elytral foveae (in C. seminole the foveae are distinct), and its southwestern distribution and association with oaks. I suppose now I’ll have to start making plans for a June/July visit to sand dune habitats in New Mexico and west Texas sometime in the near future.
REFERENCES:
Morris, R. F., II & J. E. Wappes. 2013. Description of a new Crossidius LeConte (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae: Trachyderini) from southern Georgia with comments on its biology and unusual distribution. Insecta Mundi 0304:1–7 [pdf].
Wellso, S. G. & G. V. Manley. 2007. A revision of the Chrysobothris femorata (Olivier, 1790) species group from North America, north of Mexico (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). Zootaxa 1652:1–26 [abstract].
© Ted C. MacRae 2014
Who likes mole crickets?
I do!
On a recent collecting trip to southeastern Georgia, we spent the night in Swainsboro. We found a hotel and went to the restaurant across the street for dinner. It was dark by the time we got back to the hotel, and since it was a rather warm, muggy night we did what any entomologist worth his salt would do on such a night—creep around the parking lot and building perimeter checking the lights for insects. Late May is still a tad early for checking lights, but among the small assortment of insects we did find were these slim, active insects known as mole crickets (family Gryllotalpidae). Not true crickets, though related, and certainly not moles, these odd-looking critters are immediately distinguishable by their mole-like, fossorial (digging) front legs—a remarkable example of convergence between members of two completely separate animal phyla.
Scapteriscus borellii (southern mole cricket) | Emanuel Co., Georgia.
Rather than fiddle with them out in the parking lot, I decided to bring them inside for studio photographs on a clean, white background. The widely separated tibial dactyls (literally, “shin fingers”) of the digging feet identify them as Scapteriscus borellii, or southern mole cricket. Despite their name they are an exotic insect, having originally come from much further south (southern South America) and arriving in the U.S. early in the 20th century. While true crickets jump, mole crickets run—and fast! They also, however, have the comical tendency to play dead for a moment when disturbed before bolting to safety. I was able to use this behavior to my advantage while taking photographs—every time he began running, all I had to do was cover him up with a bottle cap. After only a few seconds I was able to remove the cap and take a shot or two before he got the nerve to try to bolt again.
© Ted C. MacRae 2014
Gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) | Tattnall Co., Georgia
Last weekend I traveled to Georgia with two field companions to look for insects associated with sand scrub habitats in the southeastern part of the state. Of course, while I am an entomologist with beetles as a focus, I am also a naturalist who keeps an eye out for all manner of critters, plants, and other natural features. Thus, when we saw an enormous tortoise about to cross the road while driving through sand scrub habitat south of Riedsville, there was no debating whether we should stop and take a look. We immediately recognized him as a gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus), even though none of us had actually ever seen a gopher tortoise in person. (I say “him” because the of the fairly long gular projection, which is generally longer in males than in females.)
Contrary to popular perception, this tortoise walked rather urgently.
We pulled over about 50 yards further up the road and began hiking back towards the tortoise. As we got closer, he immediately turned and started running (yes, running!) towards us. Seriously. He reminded me of a puppy that had gotten lost and just seen his master! I don’t think I have ever seen something quite like that, and I don’t think I can really explain it, either.
He definitely had somewhere in mind that he wanted to go…
Once we got quite close, he turned away and crawled back up onto the road in an attempt to cross to the other side. I had grabbed my big camera, as I did not want to record this encounter with just my iPhone. I also did not want to photograph him on the road surface, so one of my companions picked him up (with gloves on) and brought him back over to the roadside where I began taking photographs on a more natural substrate.
…and he wanted to get there quickly.
This was one enormous tortoise—the carapace easily measured 12 inches in length, which I later read is at the upper end of the range for adults of this species. We marveled at his old-man head and thick, powerfully clawed front legs—an obvious adaptation for a digging lifestyle. I almost wish I had borrowed my companion’s gloves and taken advantage of the opportunity to pick him up myself and see how much he weighed. No matter—he was easily the largest testudine that I have ever seen!
Who would think a tortoise could be so hard to photograph!
I don’t know where this tortoise was going or why, but I do know that it was, surprisingly, one of the most difficult to photograph subjects I have ever encountered. He was quite capable of moving along at a rather quick pace (tortoise-and-hare fables notwithstanding) and never stopped urgently trying to cross the road. It was difficult to stay low to avoid a “top-down” perspective and still keep in front of him. We moved him to the other side of the road, thinking that might make him happy, but he would then just turn around and try to get back on the road and cross back to where he came from. I decided to just set the camera on autofocus and, with abundance natural light, starting snapping away to play a numbers game. Out of the few dozen or so exposures I got, the ones shown here are all that I kept (the others mostly showing a “bum” leg or two). The first photo at top is my favorite of the bunch.
© Ted C. MacRae 2014
Phidippus princeps female | Howell Co., Missouri
In my previous post, Monday Jumper, I featured a photo of a strikingly colored jumping spider (family Salticidae) that apparently represents an adult male Phidippus princeps. Far too skittish to attempt photographing in the field, I placed him in a vial and photographed him later in the hotel room but still only got one photo that was good enough to post. Shortly after gathering him up, I came across another jumping spider that proved far more cooperative for field shots. This was no doubt due in large part to the fact that she had just captured a fat, juicy caterpillar. I find predaceous insects to be far less skittish when they are involved in the act of consuming prey. This not only makes them easier to approach and photograph, but also adds a desirable natural history element to photos that is sometimes missing in “portrait-only” photographs.
Somber coloration, large abdomen, and small carapace contrast distinctly with the male
I say “she” because of the classic female characters exhibited—relatively large and rounded abdomen (males tend to have a smaller and more tapered abdomen), smaller carapace, somber coloration, and absence of a “boxing glove” aspect to the pedipalps. Like the male I had just collected, she was on the foliage of an oak sapling, and as I began taking photographs I noticed in the preview screen the brilliant, metallic blue chelicerae that are a hallmark of the large salticid genus Phidippus. I had also presumed the male I had just collected belonged to this same genus based on gestalt, but I could have never imagined that the two individuals actually represented male and female of the very same species. Such appears to be the case, however, as a thorough perusal of the salticid galleries at BugGuide leads me to believe that the individual featured here is the adult female of Phidippus princeps.
Check out those metallic blue chelicerae!
These photos still may not approach the technical and aesthetic perfection exhibited by master salticid portraitist Thomas Shahan, but I think they do represent an improvement over my first attempt at photographing a feeding female. The first two photos are fine, but the third suffers from the focus being a little too “deep”, which seems to be my most frequent macrophotography mistake on higher mag shots. If you have any tips on how to overcome this particular problem I am all ears!
© Ted C. MacRae 2014
Phidippus princeps, adult male | Howell Co., Missouri (studio shot).
A couple of weeks ago, shortly after my friend Rich and I began hiking a 9-mile stretch of the North Fork Section of the Ozark Trail in the far southern reaches of Missouri, we encountered this colorful jumping spider (family Salticidae) on the foliage of an oak sapling. He was not at all in the mood to be photographed—dashing persistently from one side of the leaf to the other and finally dropping to the ground as I tried to close in for some shots. So active was the little guy, that even had I managed to get him within the camera’s field of view it would have been nearly impossible to get him properly focused, much less achieve a nice composition. Hoping he would be a little easier to work with in the confines of a hotel “studio”, we coaxed him into a vial with a sprig of foliage and then got him out and placed him on a branch of dogwood flowers (Cornus florida) that evening once we were in our room. Yes—he was easier to work with, but only by the fact that being in a hotel room made it more difficult for him to escape! He was just as active as in the field, darting from flower to flower in his persistent efforts to elude the large glass eye that kept trying to look at him. For many subjects, I would have given up rather than spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get photographs that likely would not turn out to be what I wanted. But this spider was just so attractive—red and black and white with flashy blue chelicerae! I persisted in my efforts, got about two dozen shots off before he finally did escape, then promptly deleted all but five immediately after seeing them on the computer. The photo shown here is the only “keeper” that I can actually bring myself to post—the focus is a bit too deep, but not so much that it detracts greatly from what is otherwise a fairly decent composition. The more I shoot jumping spiders, the more I am amazed at the portraits that Thomas Shahan achieves with these delightful little arachnids.
After browsing through the salticid galleries at BugGuide, I am inclined to believe this is the species Phidippus princeps, with the coloration and white-stripes on the pedipalps suggesting it is an adult male. ID correction welcome.
© Ted C. MacRae 2014
It seems therefore that a taste for collecting beetles is some indication of future success in life!--Charles Darwin
I feel like an old war-horse at the sound of a trumpet when I read about the capture of rare beetles.--Charles Darwin
The Creator, if He exists, must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.--J. B. S. Haldane
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