beetles

Why are this beetle’s elytra outstretched?

/ Ted C. MacRae / 4 Comments

Toposcopus wrightii on dead branch Juniperus virginiana | Major Co., Oklahoma

I’ve puzzled over the beetle in the above photo since I first saw it back in September on Day 2 of this year’s Annual Fall Tiger Beetle Trip. I encountered it on a dead branch of eastern red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana) on top of the main mesa at Gloss Mountain State Park in northwestern Oklahoma. At about 8 mm in length, it immediately struck me as possibly something in the family Ripiphoridae (wedge-shaped beetles). Still, the full-length elytra covering the abdomen made me doubt that identification, so I collected the specimen to get a better look at it when I returned home. Later that same day, while scanning the base of another mesa across the highway from the park at night, I came upon another individual that seemed to represent the same species—this time on a dead branch of fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica). That individual is seen in the photo below, and two things are immediately apparent: 1) the beetle is a female in the act of oviposition, and 2) it is holding its elytra outstretched in a most curious way.

Another female oviposits on a dead branch of Rhus aromatica.

A quick browse through BugGuide’s ripiphorid images quickly showed a likely match with the genus Toposcopus, and consulting the original description of both the genus and its only included species—T. wrightii (LeConte 1868) showed agreement with the key diagnostic character (eyes divided into two lobes connected by a slender line of smooth, non-faceted corneous membrane). These two females differ from the male by their much less flabellate antennae (presumably the male uses these organs to detect female-emitted pheromones). LeConte described this species from New Mexico, and Rivnay (1929) also saw specimens from Texas and Arizona when he reviewed the North and Central American species of the family. Although the species is listed on Don Arnold’s Checklist of the Coleoptera of Oklahoma, the listing seems to be based only on the presence of specimens in the Oklahoma State University insect collection, while published records of its occurrence in the state are, as far as I can tell, still lacking. This species, thus, seems to be, along with Acmaeodera macra and Chrysobothris octocola (both family Buprestidae), an example of a typically southwestern U.S. species whose distribution extends northeast into the Red Hills Region of northwestern Oklahoma. Considering that Cylindera celeripes (Swift Tiger Beetle) and Amblycheila cylindriformis (Great Plains Giant Tiger Beetle) also have only recently been discovered in this area, it would seem that this part of the state is still undersampled and has the potential to yield additional interesting southwestern U.S. species.

Why is this female holding her elytra outstretched while ovipositing?

Regarding the outstretched elytra, I’ve not seen this type of behavior before with a beetle in the act of oviposition. While several groups of insects in other orders may hold their forewings outstretched as part of threat displays, I’ve not seen a beetle hold its elytra outstretched for any reason at all other than flight and don’t recall seeing such behavior mentioned in the literature either. Thus, I’m at a loss to explain why the beetle is doing this. If you have any ideas I would love to hear them.

One thing that I enjoy immensely about 19th Century taxonomic literature is the rich, often effusive prose that frequently accompanies the descriptive portions of the text. (I also lament that such colorful writings are nearly universally frowned upon my modern editors. Perhaps as taxonomy advances more fully into electronic-only publishing the concerns about space will dissipate and taxonomic authors will no longer be constrained to such sterile, uniform, precisely formatted writings.) The naming of this species provides an especially colorful example of the embellishments permitted to 19th Century authors:

I desire in the name of this beautiful and interesting addition to our fauna, to commemorate the ability of Gen. W. W. Wright, the Chief Engineer and Commander of the Survey in which the species in the present memoir were collected. His attention to the comfort and safety of the party while traveling through a hostile Indian country will not soon be forgotten by any of his companions; while the skill with which the more difficult portions of the route were examined, and the labors of his assistants directed to the most easy methods of surmounting the difficulties, will commend itself to every admirer of correct engineering.

John L. LeConte is widely regarded as the father of North American coleopterology. I don’t think there is anybody from the 19th Century, save perhaps Charles Darwin, that I would have more liked to meet.

REFERENCES: 

LeConte, J. L. 1868. New Coleoptera collected on the survey for the extension of the Union Pacific Railway, E. D. from Kansas to Fort Craig, New Mexico. Transactions of the American Entomological Society 2:49–59.

Rivnay, E. 1929. Revision of the Rhipiphoridae of North and Central America (Coleoptera). Memoirs of the American Entomological Society 6:1–67, 3 plates.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

How to deal with a crappy photo of a beautiful beetle

/ Ted C. MacRae / 21 Comments

One thing I’ve discovered after trying my hand at insect macrophotography for the past three years is that I take a lot more photos than I can possibly post. As a result, I tend to focus my efforts on more recent photos, especially those that have some kind of interesting natural history story to tell. Photos that don’t get posted soon after I took them tend to accumulate in my virtual “not yet posted” files, and periodically I need to browse through them to re-acquaint myself with any that I may have since forgotten about. Not all of these “other” photos are bad or uninteresting—they just happened to be taken at a time when I had other photos that I was more interested in using. Admittedly, however, there truly are some rather ugly photos in these archives, and the older they are the more frequently I find myself asking, “Why in the heck did I even keep that photo?” (hopefully this indicates improvement in my standards of what constitutes a photo worth keeping).

Cicindela limbalis | nr. Laramie, Wyoming

There is, however, a lesson here to be learned, and that is don’t be too quick to send to the recycle bin a photo that at first sight appears not worth keeping. Take, for example, this photograph of Cicindela limbalis (Common Claybank Tiger Beetle). This pretty little species is broadly distributed in Canada and the northern U.S. from New England across the Great Plains to the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Different populations show differing degrees of maculation, and here in Missouri the species is nearly immaculate. I found the individual in the above photo in Wyoming’s Medicine Bow National Forest as an example of the more completely maculated forms. However, since it was the only individual I saw in that location I didn’t try to photograph it in the field. Instead, I captured it and photographed it later in the “studio” (my hotel room). Sadly, this was in September 2010 when I was still a rank beginner in terms of insect macrophotography, and as a result I was far less versed on such details as lighting and composition than I am now. I’m ashamed to say that I thought this photo was “good enough.”

Of course, by today’s standards that is one crappy photo! If it wasn’t the sole photo that I have from that population I wouldn’t hesitate to throw it away. However, since I’ve been putting some effort recently into honing my Photoshop skills, I thought I would see if I could “rescue” from this crappy photo a halfway decent one. I did this as follow:

  • I opened the “Levels” tool, clicked on the “Set White Point” button, and touched the cursor to an area of the upper background. This not only eliminated most of the gray tinge in the background but also brightened up the beetle quite a bit. I brightened the beetle even more by pulling the left slider button in the “Input Levels” box a little more to the right (12). In the case of this photo, such levels adjustments were sufficient, but in some cases I might also slightly reduce shadowing using the “Shadows/Highlights” tool (2–10% is usually enough) or adjust color using the “Adjust Hue/Saturation” tool (whether you increase or decrease saturation, a light touch is best).
  • With the background brightened up, the debris spots were even more visible and needed to be cleaned up. This was easily accomplished with the “Spot Healing Brush” tool. I keep the size setting as small as possible for each spot while still encompassing the entirety of the spot. Debris spots next to or on the surface of the beetle are better dealt with using the “Clone Stamp” tool—this tool is a little more involved than the Spot Healing Brush, since a source point needs to be selected for each spot. However, it is more effective than the Spot Healing Brush for spots that are in areas where the background is not uniform. Again, I use the smallest size possible and carefully consider the source point for each clone to achieve the best results.
  • The last major problem with this photo was its composition. If I were to take it again today, I would angle the front of the beetle higher in the photo and not clip the middle and hind tarsi or antennal tip as I did in this photo. There is not a lot (though there is a little) that can be done about the clipping, but I used the “Straighten” tool to change the angle of the beetle by clicking on the tip of the abdomen and dragging the cursor to somewhere between the lower front leg and antenna. This resulted in a more pleasing pose for the beetle, but of course it also created triangular areas of blank canvas on each side that had to be dealt with. To do this, I cropped the edges of the photo to remove as much of the blank canvas as I could without cropping off any more of the beetle (I did end up cropping a little bit of the left hind leg), then used the Clone Stamp tool to fill the remaining blank areas with white background (this is much more difficult when the background is not as uniform as in this photo). Careful cloning is required in areas that are close to the beetle to prevent unintended alterations, and in this case I even had to clone in a fake lower tarsus for the middle leg and antennal tip for the left antenna to fill gaps that I could not crop. Cloning in new body parts is not always possible, and even when it is possible it’s not easy; however, with care and practice reasonable results can be achieved. In the case of this beetle it was not too difficult since the body parts that needed to be cloned were just short extensions of already blurred parts.

Lastly, I used typical “Unsharp Mask” settings to sharpen the photo, and here is the final result:

This photo won’t win any awards, but it is a completely serviceable illustration of the species.

This is still not a great photo—in addition to the clipping, the focus is a tad too deep and the beetle has assumed that dreaded “ground hugging” pose that I so detest with confined subjects. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be ashamed to use this photo if none better were available.

What alternative techniques would you have used on reworking this photo?

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

The Third of Florida’s Three Metallic Tiger Beetles

/ Ted C. MacRae / 7 Comments

Tetracha virginica (Virginia Metallic Tiger Beetle) | Levy Co., Florida

After three straight posts not about tiger beetles, I’m hoping readers will forgive my return to this fascinating group. The photos in this post represent Tetracha virginica (Virginia Metallic Tiger Beetle), the most widely distributed (at least in the U.S.) of the four species occurring in North America north of Mexico. Even though this species occurs in my home state of Missouri, I’d not found an opportunity to photograph it until August last year at Florida’s “Road to Nowhere“—famous among U.S. cicindelophiles as one of the country’s true tiger beetle “hot spots.” In fact, it was on the very same night at this same place that I photographed the related Tetracha carolina (Carolina Metallic Tiger Beetle) (featured in Not all Florida tiger beetles are rare) and just one day after I photographed the endemic Tetracha floridana (Florida Metallic Tiger Beetle) (featured in Why I Roamed the Marsh at Night). That’s all three species of Tetracha occurring in Florida in just two days (and if I want to photograph the fourth and only remaining U.S. species, Tetracha impressus (Upland Metallic Tiger Beetle), I’ll have to go to Brownsville, Texas and get very lucky!).

The solid green elytra without apical markings distinguish this species from all other Tetracha spp. in the U.S.

Truthfully, I had no plans to post these photos after I took them. Like the other species they were photographed at night, and when I got a better look at the photos on the computer I was disappointed to see the subject was badly covered with large particles of sand. I don’t mind a little bit of debris on insects—it is, after all, a normal part of their appearance. However, too much debris is, for me, an aesthetics killer! “Wait a minute… these don’t look too bad”, you say? Well, thanks to the Clone Stamp Tool in Photoshop Elements, and as a followup to my recent post on this subject, I now have enough confidence to tackle not only small pieces of debris, but also more difficult “debris cases” such as this one with relatively large particles. Here is the same photo as shown above and processed in exactly the same manner, except that no cloning was used to remove the debris:

Aren’t I a dirty boy?!

Obviously, there are limits to what the Clone Stamp Tool can do, and I didn’t try to deal with the sand particles clinging to more difficult to clone body parts such as legs and antennae (although I’m sure that in the right hands even these could be cloned out). Nevertheless, even just cleaning the dorsal surface of the beetle does much to improve its appearance with a relatively minor amount of effort.

And, of course, what would a tiger beetle post be if it did not end with my signature face portrait (notwithstanding a few large sand grains that I wasn’t sure I could clone out effectively)?

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Post processing—then and now

/ Ted C. MacRae / 10 Comments

I recently happened upon one of my first attempts at post processing a photograph of a pinned insect specimen. The subject was Anomalipus elephas (large armoured darkling beetle), a tank of an insect (this example measuring 32 mm in length) belonging to the family Tenebrionidae. At the time, I was quite pleased with the results of my crude post processing efforts and proudly posted the “enhanced” photo in full-sized glory for all to behold. Since then, I’ve gained some experience with post processing of photos, and when I saw the processed photo this time I knew that there was considerable room for improvement. I thought it might be interesting to give the photo another PP whack and compare the two efforts from then and now.

Here is the original photo—keep in mind that the photo was taken with a small (though fairly decent) point-and-shoot camera (Panasonic DMC-FX3) a few months before I made the move to my current dSLR setup. I pinned the specimen to a styrofoam board, illuminated it with two 23w compact fluorescent light bulbs, and took the photo with the camera set on its “macro” setting. For the original post processed version (using Adobe Photoshop Elements version 6.0), I rotated and cropped the photo, then increased brightness and contrast (I don’t remember the values for each), used the clone tool to remove the pinhead (I’d just figured out how to do this), and increased sharpness using unsharp mask. This is all well and good (although I think the added contrast was a little excessive); however, I did make two big mistakes. The first was using the eraser tool to create a white background—a tedious process, especially around the perimeter of the subject to avoid “clipping” any of the subject’s body. The second was leaving the numerous small pieces of debris clinging to the subject. Debris on pinned (and even live) specimens is now a pet peeve of mine—I find it detracts greatly from the appearance of the photo, yet it is remarkably easy to remove in all but the most extreme of cases. At any rate, here is the result of that original attempt:

For the latest attempt, I rotated and cropped the original photo as before. Next, I created a white background, not with the “Eraser Tool” but rather by opening “Levels”, clicking on “Set White Point”, and touching the darkest part of the background. Voilá—a beautiful white background with no clipped subject edges! The subject still needed to be brightened up (two 23w fluorescent bulbs don’t put out that much light); however, instead of directly adjusting brightness I set “Lighten Shadows” to a value of +30% (a rather heavy handed setting) to also reduce shadows around the subject’s legs. Then I used the “Clone Stamp Tool” to clone out the pinhead, but this time I didn’t stop there—I continued using the tool to clone out all of the tiny little pieces of debris on the subject surface. Using the clone stamp tool effectively requires some practice, but eventually one learns to adjust the size and define the source set point to achieve almost perfect results. Lastly, I increased sharpness with “Unsharp Mask” (118%, 1.0 pixels, 8 levels). That’s it—took me all of about 3 or 4 minutes to post process the original photo to achieve the following result:

To compare the two post-processed images directly click here. Of course, my current camera setup is capable of much higher quality photographs than the point-and-shoot used for the subject of this post; however, the sequence of post processing  steps that I use is essentially the same (if less heavy handed). One final note—I am not a Photoshop expert, and perhaps some of the processes I have described can be done even more effectively or easily than in the manner I have described. I would welcome any comments or tips that you think might offer a better way to post process photos of pinned specimens.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Tiger lovin’

/ Ted C. MacRae / 4 Comments

It seems I’m not the only one that finds tiger beetles irresistible. Gorgeous colors, long legs, and big eyes, they captivate me endlessly with their big, toothy jaws and charismatic behaviors. I blather incessantly about them, but today I’m going to do something that I rarely do here—shut up and let somebody else do the talking!

First up is Troy Bartlett (author of Nature Close-ups), who has just posted some stunning photographs of the super rare Cicindelidia highlandensis (Highlands Tiger Beetle) taken during his recent trip to Florida. I’ve photographed this species before, but not as well as Troy—the face shot he got has me green with envy!

Scarcely three minutes after Troy posted his photos, Delbert La Rue (author of Crooked Beak Workshop), a coleopterist who has studied scarabs for most of his life, shows that he too has fallen prey to the tigers’ charms. It’s a sad thing when collectors pin tiger beetles and put them in a collection drawer without doing anything to protect those stunning colors and amazingly intricate white markings. Delbert describes in detail just how he accomplishes this task, a beautifully prepared unit tray of the Willcox Playa classic Habroscelimorpha fulgoris erronea (Willcox Tiger Beetle) serving as proof of his technique. What mojo!

Please visit both of these blogs and let the authors know you’re down with their tiger lovin’!

Sexual Profiles

/ Ted C. MacRae / 3 Comments

I recently happened upon these photographs of Habroscelimorpha severa (Saltmarsh Tiger Beetle), taken in early August last year at the terminus of Florida’s famous “Road to Nowhere“. I hadn’t thought to post them afterwards because I’d already shown a photograph of this species taken at the same spot during the previous year’s visit. I should have, as they are much better photographs than that initial attempt. Blame part of the first attempt on the fact that I was only in my third month of insect macrophotography, but the biggest reason for the improvement was because I’d gotten a little smarter and learned to use a blacklight to bring these extremely wary beetles to me at night rather than try to chase after them during the day. Still, I don’t get much enjoyment out of posting photos for no other reason than to post photos, so they’ve sat on my hard drive for the past year and a half. In looking at them again, however, I realized that the first and second, profiles of a female and a male, respectively, make for a nice comparison of the secondary sexual characters exhibited by adults of this species.

Habroscelimorpha severa (female) | Levy Co., Florida

Females exhibit fewer sexual characters than males, the main one being the presence of grooves on each side at the back of the pronotum (neck). These grooves function during mating, at which time the male grasps the female by the pronotum with his mandibles. This helps to provide a more secure grip for the male to prevent him from being dislodged during mating and subsequent mate guarding. The grooves themselves are not obvious in the photo, but the lack of setae (hairs) within them is, giving the female a less “hairy” look than the male. As with most insects, females also are more robust—their abdomens larger to make room for egg-making machinery, although in this and other tiger beetle species the difference is not that obvious.

Image

Habroscelimorpha severa (male) | Levy Co., Florida

Males are immediately recognizable by several respects. In addition to the smaller abdomen and “hairier” pronotum lacking lateral grooves, male tiger beetles in most of the “higher” genera exhibit brush-like pads on the undersides of the front tarsi (feet). The function of these pads is not completely clear, but prevailing opinion is that they somehow aid in gripping the female during mating. I’m not sure I buy into this—males do sometimes hold onto females with their front legs during mating, but how these pads improve grip escapes me. Further, it is my experience that males actually spend more time during mating and mate guarding with their front legs outstretched to each side. I’ve also noticed that males are reluctant to release females even when danger approaches (even in the form of a giant insect macrophotographer). I’ve seen males tenaciously clinging to the female as she violently tries to shake him off and flee from my approach. It makes me think that perhaps the tarsal pads serve some tactile function as a final warning of impending danger to a grasping male, allowing him to not give up his female until absolutely necessary (hey, it’s an idea—if you have an alternative idea I’d love to hear it). There is more, however—look at that big head!

Habroscelimorpha severa (male) | Levy Co., Florida

Actually,  the male’s head is no larger than the female’s, but the proportionately longer mandibles give the male a distinctly “big-headed” look.  In contrast, the labrum (upper lip) is shorter than the female’s (making the mandibles look longer still). Both of these characters are, again, related to the habit of grasping the female pronotum, with the longer mandibles allowing a more secure grip of the female pronotum and the shorter labrum adding even more functional length to the mandibles (I can also imagine that this might have some effect on choice of prey by males versus females). The male mandibles also have a greater amount of white coloration at their bases—this might simply be a function of the relatively larger size of the mandibles, but given that males of many species exhibit more white overall on both the mandibles and the labrum (the latter of which is usually smaller), it seems more logical to me that the white coloration serves as a visual cue for potential mate recognition.

“Hey baby, I like your grooves!”

“Yeah, well your white lips aren’t so bad either.”

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Just repanda… er, wait a minute…

/ Ted C. MacRae / 7 Comments

Update 10/7/12, 10:41 a.m.—Thanks to Ben Coulter, who pointed out my rather silly misidentification of these beetles that actually represent Cicindelidia ocellata rectilatera (Reticulated Tiger Beetle). I have only my failure to even consider the possibility of a southwestern species to blame for the error, as the evidence was staring me right in the face (the lack of any trace of lateral connecting band and, most obviously, the reddish parts on the underside). No wonder the habitat didn’t seem quite right! I was not aware of the occurrence of this species east of Texas, so I’ll have to dig a little bit to see if this is an unusual record. Pearson et al. (2006) show the northeastern limit of distribution coming very close to but not actually reaching the southwestern corner of Arkansas, and the closest records given by Graves & Pearson (1973) are in western Louisiana and adjoining Texas. It would be immensely rewarding should this turn out to be a new state record (though there are many sources still to check to confirm this)—not to mention the irony of it in view of the post title (call it a double “er, wait a minute”!). At any rate, I should have been a lot more excited when I saw it than I was.

After a fun-filled day of photographing the Limestone Tiger Beetle in northern Texas, it was time to start working my way back to Missouri. I had one last goal that I wanted to accomplish before spending my last day in our state’s White River Hills, and that was to find and photograph the unbelievably gorgeous Cicindela formosa pigmentosignata. Dubbed the “Reddish-green Sand Tiger Beetle” by Erwin & Pearson (2008), this brilliant violaceous and nearly immaculate subspecies of the Big Sand Tiger Beetle is restricted to sandy areas of open pine forests in eastern Texas, southwestern Arkansas, and northwestern Louisiana (Pearson et al. 2006). I had a few specific localities that I’d gleaned from colleagues and the literature and targeted the two “best” (specificity of location, recent occurrence, and reasonably “on the way” back to Missouri) for Day 7 of the trip. The first site in Texas looked perfect—deep, dry sandy 2-tracks leading through open pine/oak forest, and I was actually surprised when I’d searched a mile or so of track and hadn’t yet seen one (the habitat just looked that good). Still, I spent quite a bit more time searching, thinking that numbers could be low and it might take such an effort. Sadly this was all in vain, and the time came to give up and try again at the second locality in Arkansas. The story was largely the same at this second locality also, and by late afternoon I had come to accept that this was one challenge that I was going to lose (for now at least).

Cicindela duodecimguttata Cicindelidia ocellata rectilatera | Nevada Co., Arkansas

As I searched one bit of potential habitat at the Arkansas location, I noted the presence of Cicindela repanda (Bronzed Tiger Beetle). This species is dreadfully common throughout much of the eastern U.S. in just about any near-water habitat, which told me I was probably too close to water to find the higher, drier-ground preferring Big Sand Tigers. I’ve seen millions of C. repanda through the years (this may not be an exaggeration), and since they show so little polytopism (geographically-based variation), at least in the parts of its distribution that I have visited, I hardly pay them mind anymore. As I was walking, however, something caused me to take a closer look—some of them didn’t seem quite “right.” Of course, you can’t just walk up to a tiger beetle and stoop down for a good look at it. Stalking is required, usually of several individuals before finding one that you can approach closely enough to see the necessary characters, and when I did this I realized most of the C. “repanda” I was seeing were actually a different species—Cicindela duodecimguttata (12-spotted Tiger Beetle)!

Even tiger beetles get bored during sex—this female preening her antennae seems oblivious to the male engaging her.

I get the impression from literature sources that 12-spotted Tiger Beetles are quite common further east, especially in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada. However, here in the central U.S. they are not commonly encountered. In fact, these are the first of the species that I have seen since I began photographing tiger beetles more than 3 years ago. In Missouri the few instances that I have seen them were along creeks and small rivers with banks composed of sand and a fair bit of dark clay. This makes sense, given their generally darker coloration compared to Bronzed Tiger Beetles, and it is this character that first stands out amongst the hoardes of C. repanda with which it usually co-occurs.  Once the darker coloration draws the eye, the markings of the elytra—reduced and broken into six spots (usually) on each one—confirm its identity. Despite the similarity of appearance to C. repanda, this species is actually more closely related to Cicindela oregona (Western Tiger Beetle), an exceedingly common species found from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast and north deep into Alaska. In fact, the two species are so closely that they have formed a hybrid zone where they come into contact along the front range of the Rockies—one could almost argue that they are only subspecifically distinct because of this. 

A male pauses briefly while hunting for prey (or mates).

That I found them in this particular habitat was a bit of a surprise to me. I mentioned that in Missouri I’ve seen them on darker creek and river banks, but the creek bank at this location was quite lightly colored and seemed to consist almost entirely of sand. There were a few C. repanda mixed in with this small population. In all, it was a welcome consolation prize that made up for not finding C. formosa pigmentosignata—sort of!

Habitat for Cicindela duodecimguttata Cicindelidia ocellata rectilatera along Mill Creek, Nevada Co., Arkansas.

REFERENCES:

Erwin, T. L. and D. L. Pearson. 2008. A Treatise on the Western Hemisphere Caraboidea (Coleoptera). Their classification, distributions, and ways of life. Volume II (Carabidae-Nebriiformes 2-Cicindelitae). Pensoft Series Faunistica 84. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, 400 pp.

Pearson, D. L., C. B. Knisley and C. J. Kazilek. 2006. A Field Guide to the Tiger Beetles of the United States and Canada. Oxford University Press, New York, 227 pp.

Added: Graves, R. L. & D. L. Pearson. 1973. The tiger beetles of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Transactions of the American Entomological Society 99(2):157–203.

Added: Pensoft

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Some recent publications

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I’ve had a few papers published in recent months that may be of interest to some. After a string of papers in 2011 focused exclusively on tiger beetles (five in all), these latest three represent sort a return to my “roots”: taxonomy and biosystematics of woodboring beetles (Buprestidae and Cerambycidae). Summaries are provided below, and hyperlinks in the citations lead to downloadable PDFs for those wishing to see the gory details.

  • MacRae, T. C. & R. L. Westcott. 2012. Nomenclatural history of Melanophila drummondi ab. nicolayi Obenberger, 1944 (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), a change of authorship and synonymy under Phaenops drummondi (Kirby 1837), and a new distribution record and summary of larval hosts for the species. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 88(1):87–91.
     
    This paper can be considered of the “taxonomic housekeeping” sort. It concerns an “aberration” of the common, widespread jewel beetle species Phaenops drummondi. The current version of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999) considers aberrations and other infrasubspecific (rank lower than subspecies) taxa as unavailable names with no taxonomic standing. However, they may be considered valid depending on date of publication and how they were treated by subsequent authors. In the majority of cases the guidance is clear on whether a given aberration, variety, form, etc. is considered unavailable or valid. However, there are times when multiple, conflicting interpretations are possible. The case described in this paper is one example, and even though the taxon clearly falls within the range of variability exhibited by the parent species, careful study of multiple provisions of The Code were required to determine its proper status. In the end, a change of authorship followed by formal synonymy were deemed the best course of action. Updated information on the distribution of P. drummondi and a summary of known larval hosts are also provided.
     
  • MacRae, T. C., L. G. Bezark & I. Swift. 2012. Notes on distribution and host plants of Cerambycidae (Coleoptera) from southern México. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 88(2):173–184.
     
    From 2004–2006 I made three collecting trips to México with my friend and colleague, Chuck Bellamy. Our main focus was the rich diversity of jewel beetles that occur in the relatively intact, dry, tropical thorn forests that stretch across the southern states of Guerrero, Michoacan, Oaxaca, and Puebla, and in this respect we were quite successful. I also have an interest in longhorned beetles, but I try to limit my scope in this family to the Nearctic fauna and didn’t specifically target these beetles during those trips. Still, many species were encountered during the course of beating potential jewel beetle host plants. As with jewel beetles, the longhorned beetle fauna of México is rich but very incompletely known, with distributional data below the country level and knowledge of host plants lacking or inadequate for most species. This paper presents specific distributional and host plant information for 78 species in 50 genera of longhorned beetles collected during those trips. Included within the data presented are 47 new state records, 47 new adult host records, and 60 new flower records.
     
  • Steury, B. W., T. C. MacRae & E. T. Oberg. 2012. Annotated list of the metallic wood-boring beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera: Buprestidae) of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, Fairfax County, Virginia.  Banisteria 39:71–75.
     
    Lead author Brent Steury of the U.S. National Park Service contacted me last year about identifying jewel beetles that had been collected at a number of units in the George Washington Memorial Parkway during recent BioBlitz surveys and as by-catch from studies targeting other arthropods. The surveys were worthy of reporting on, as 23 species in nine jewel beetle genera were represented in the material collected—including two species reported for the first time from Virginia: Paragrilus tenuis (LeConte) and Pachyschelus purpureus purpureus (Say). Information is also provided on the collecting methods used during the surveys, with Malaise traps, hand netting, and pan traps being the only ones successful in capturing jewel beetles (Lindgren funnel and pitfall traps did not capture any).

REFERENCE: 

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature [ICZN]. 1999. International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, 4th Edition. The International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, c/o Natural History Museum, London. xxix + 306 pp.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012