Oklahoma

Bee Assassin on Coneflower

/ Ted C. MacRae / 6 Comments
Bee assassin (Apiomerus spissipes) on coneflower (Echinacea sp.) | Gloss Mountain State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Apiomerus spissipes? on coneflower (Echinacea sp.) | Gloss Mountain State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

While looking for longhorned beetles on prickly pear cactus (Opuntia macrorhiza) at Gloss Mountains State Park, I saw a coneflower that didn’t look quite right—there was nothing on the top, but there seemed to be something on the underside. I knelt down cautiously and peered underneath the blossom to find this bee assassin (family Reduviidae, genus Apiomerus) lurking under the petals. As a collector with eyes always looking for signs of insects, I’ve trained myself to look for both the obvious and the non-obvious, yet  this brightly colored insect still almost completely escaped my notice. I can imagine that a bee with little room in its mind for anything but collecting pollen would be easy pickings for such a stealthy predator.

Apiomerus spissipes

The coloration of this individual seems to best match specimens representing the species Apiomerus spissipes, which ranges broadly and abundantly across the Great Plains (Berniker et al. 2011). The location of Gloss Mountain State Park in western Oklahoma places it almost smack in the middle of the recorded distribution for this species, which is largely replaced further east by the closely related but generally darker A. crassipes. Interestingly, very few Oklahoma specimens were available for examination by Berniker and colleagues during their study, a fact that once again demonstrates the need for continued collecting in even “well-collected” states like Oklahoma.

REFERENCE:

Berniker, l., S. Szerlip, D. Forero & C. Weirauch. 2011. Revision of the crassipes and pictipes species groups of Apiomerus Hahn (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Harpactorinae). Zootaxa 2949:1–113.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

Haldeman’s shieldback katydid (Pediodectes haldemani)

/ Ted C. MacRae / 14 Comments

During my visit to Gloss Mountain State Park (Woodward Co., Oklahoma) this past June, I found an area of prickly pear cactus (Opuntia macrorhiza) on the west flats below the main mesa. A few days earlier I had seen cactus beetles in the genus Moneilema (family Cerambycidae) associated with these plants at another nearby location, so I began checking the plants to look for any sign of these beetles. Sadly I did not find any, but the plants were in full bloom and were being visited by flower longhorns in the genus Typocerus (mostly just T. octonotatus). After having collected a small series, I approached one particular cactus plant and found this enormous katydid sitting inside the flower. Katydids normally secrete themselves in a more cryptic manner, using foliage backdrops with which they can blend owing to their green coloration. This particular katydid, however, not only lacked the leaf-like wings that many species possess but also exhibited rather strikingly contrasting dark red markings over its body that made it quite conspicuous as it sat in the yellow flower. I approached carefully so as not to spook it and took a few photographs, but as I did so it became apparent to me that it did not find my actions alarming and would allow me to take whatever photographs I wished.

Pediodectes haldemani in flower of Opuntia phaecantha | Gloss Mountains State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

Pediodectes haldemani on Opuntia macrorhiza | Gloss Mountain State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

Almost whatever photographs, that is. I really wanted to get a super-close, full-frontal shot of the face, but it sat unbudgingly in the flower with its face buried in the stamens and masked by the inner petals of the flower. I could have tried peeling away the petal, but I was sure that fiddling my fingers that close to its face would spook it, and even if I did manage to peel back the petal then I would still have stamens blocking the view that I wanted. In the end, I decided that this slightly more distant shot of the whole body was a pleasing enough composition.

Pediodectes haldemani

Peek-a-boo!

I presume this individual represents Haldeman’s shieldback katydid (Pediodectes haldemani) in the family Tettigoniidae. This is not surprising, since the type locality of the species (Barber Co., Kansas) is just a few miles to the north and right smack dab in the middle of the Great Plains distribution of the species. BugGuide mentions that species identification from photos alone can be difficult in the genus Pediodectes, as color patterns vary individually and with age, and also since adults are wingless it can be difficult to tell if an individual is a nymph or adult. Nevertheless, distribution maps in Singing Insects of North America show three species that can potentially occur in this part of Oklahoma, and the photos shown here are a dead ringer for P. haldemani. I am also apparently not the first person to photograph this species at Gloss Mountain State Park.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

The perfectly polyphagous Chrysobothris purpureovittata

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Chrysobothris purpureovittata on Celtis sp. | Gloss Mountains State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

Chrysobothris purpureovittata Horn 1886 | Gloss Mountains State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

Many species of jewels beetles in North America are known for having some degree of host specificity. This is especially true of species in the genus Chrysobothris, whose members are often restricted to a particular family, genus, or even species of host plant. There are some, however, that are not so fastidious in their choice of host plant, and perhaps the best example of such is the species Chrysobothris purpureovittata. This pretty and not uncommonly collected species has been associated with well over two dozen species of deciduous trees representing 21 genera in eleven plant families.

Chrysobothris purpureovittata

Interestingly, the extent of this species’ polyphagy has not been fully appreciated until recently. At the time of Fisher’s (1942) revision of North American species, the only recorded larval hosts were elm (Ulmus sp.) and plum (Prunus sp.). Numerous adult hosts—i.e., plants on which adults had been collected only—were recorded in subsequent years, first by Vogt (1949) in south Texas and later by Nelson et al. (1982) from other locations. However, it was not until my Missouri jewel beetle survey (MacRae 1991) and subsequent “notes papers” by me and colleagues (MacRae & Nelson 2003, MacRae 2006, Wellso & Jackman 2006) that the true diversity of larval hosts became known. A majority of the larval host records are from the Ulmaceae, including several species of hackberry (Celtis tenuifolia, C. laevigata, C. ehrenbergia, C. reticulata) and cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), suggesting that despite its polyphagous nature there is some preference for members of this plant family. On my recent early June trip to northwestern Oklahoma, I encountered this species at several localities as abundantly as I can ever recall, with nearly all of them beaten from hackberry.

Chrysobothris purpureovittata

Chrysobothris purpureovittata is distributed primarily in the central and south-central U.S., with records from Indiana west to Kansas and south to Mississippi and northern Mexico. A population at the western edge of its distribution (Cloudcroft, Otero Co., New Mexico) associated with mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus montanus) was recently described as a separate subspecies (C. purpureovittata cercocarpi) by Westcott & Nelson (2000)—it is distinguished from nominotypical populations by the entirely red pronotum and uniformly dark elytra.

Chrysobothris purpureovittata

REFERENCES:

Fisher, W. S. 1942. A revision of North American species of buprestid beetles belonging to the tribe Chrysobothrini. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication 470, 1–275.

MacRae, T. C. 1991. The Buprestidae (Coleoptera) of Missouri.  Insecta Mundi 5(2):101–126.

MacRae, T. C. 2006. Distributional and biological notes on North American Buprestidae (Coleoptera), with comments on variation in Anthaxia (Haplanthaxia) viridicornis (Say) and A. (H.) viridfrons Gory. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 82(2):166–199.

MacRae, T. C. and G. H. Nelson. 2003. Distributional and biological notes on Buprestidae (Coleoptera) in North and Central America and the West Indies, with validation of one species. The Coleopterists Bulletin 57(1):57–70.

Nelson, G. H., D. S. Verity & R. L. Westcott. 1982. Additional notes on the biology and distribution of Buprestidae (Coleoptera) of North America. The Coleopterists Bulletin 35(2) [1981]:129–152.

Vogt, G. H. 1949. A biologically annotated list of the Buprestidae of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 42(2):192–202.

Wellso, S. G. & J. A. Jackman. 2006. A new species of Anthaxia (Haplanthaxia) Reitter (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) and new North American buprestid distributional and host records. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 82(2):262–268.

Westcott, R. L. & G. H. Nelson. 2000. Descriptions of two new species of Acmaeodera Eschscholtz, and two new subspecies of Agrilus Curtis and Chrysobothris Eschscholtz (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) in North America, with detailed notes on others. The Coleopterists Bulletin 54(3):300–312.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

The ever-increasing diversity of Oklahoma beetles

/ Ted C. MacRae / 8 Comments

My idea to return to Oklahoma’s Gloss Mountains this spring actually began taking shape during last year’s fall visit to the area, when I found a single Chrysobothris octocola adult on a dead mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) branch. While common across the southwestern U.S. in association with this plant, its occurrence in the Gloss Mountains represented a northeastern range extension and new state record for Oklahoma! On that same trip I also collected an interesting beetle in the family Rhipiphoridae representing the species Toposcopus wrightii—also not previously recorded in the literature from Oklahoma. Combined with finding Acmaeodera macra here the previous year, it was becoming clear to me that area held good potential for other more typically southwestern species of wood boring beetles. Although I had by then visited the area several times, most of these visits were more focused on tiger beetles rather than wood boring beetles. If I could find such interesting species of wood boring beetles when I wasn’t focused on them, imagine what I might find if I timed a visit in late spring when such species should be at their peak of adult activity.

Chrysobothris quadrilineata | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Chrysobothris quadrilineata | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma (new state record).

Of course, success came quickly during this early June visit. I immediately found C. octocola common on the mesquite and would collect a nice series of voucher specimens before the day was over, and the second species I encountered, also on mesquite, was the longhorned beetle Plionoma suturalis—another new state record! I spent a bit of time working the mesquite, and when I had collected a sufficient series of both species, I turned my attention to the eastern red-cedars (Juniperus virginiana) in the area. Actually, I had had my eye on the red-cedars since last fall, when I noticed that nearly every tree had dead branches mixed in amongst the living branches. Closer examination revealed the workings of jewel beetle larvae in all of these dead branches, and a few larvae typical of the genus Chrysobothris were cut from one of the branches. A common species in the Great Plains associated with Juniperus is C. ignicollis, but these larvae looked rather big to represent that species, so I bundled up some dead branches and brought them back home for rearing but forgot to check on them before I left on this trip. At any rate, I walked up to one of the red-cedars, placed my beating sheet under a dead branch, gave the branch a whack with the handle of my net, and onto the sheet fell a rather robust Chrysobothris that I didn’t immediately recognize. I knew it wasn’t C. ignicollis, a much smaller species that I have collected on numerous occasions, so I thought maybe it could be C. texana, another western Juniperus-associate that I’ve collected less commonly. Still, the robust body and broad, distinct elytral and pronotal ridges had me second guessing that identification (especially after I found some individuals that looked more like what I remembered C. texana looking like). Over the next two days I beat hundreds (literally!) of dead juniper branches, finding many C. ignicollis but every now and then getting also one of these big, robust individuals.

Chrysobothris quadrilineata

Adults were beaten from dead branches on live Juniperus virginiana (new adult host).

After returning home, I checked my heavily annotated copy of Fisher (1942) and quickly determined the robust specimens as representing C. quadrilineata—a rather uncommon species and one that I’d never collected before. Described by LeConte in 1860 from New Mexico and recorded early in the 20th century from Arizona, Nevada and California, it has in more recent years been found to occupy a rather wide distribution across the western U.S., including Texas (Barr & Westcott 1976), Colorado, Oregon, South Dakota (Nelson et al. 1982), and Utah (Nelson 1987). Notice one state that is not in that list—Oklahoma! That’s right, another new state record! I later found photographs of this species on BugGuide taken in the very same area a year earlier (7 June 2012).

Chrysobothris quadrilineata

Adults also emerged from dead J. virginiana branches collected Sept. 2012 (first reported larval host).

When I returned home, I also checked the rearing cans and found several adults had emerged from the branches I collected last September. The only host associations that have been recorded for this species are adults collected on Juniperus californica (Linsley & Ross 1940) and J. pachyphloea [= J. deppeana] (Barr & Westcott 1976). Thus, J. virginiana not only represents a new host record for the species but is also the first known larval host. Considering how broadly distributed across the western U.S. this species is, it seems likely that it utilizes a number of Juniperus spp. throughout its range.

REFERENCES:

Barr, W. F. & R. L. Westcott. 1976. Taxonomic, biological and distributional notes of North American Chrysobothris, with description of a new species from California (Coleoptera: Buprestidae).  The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 52(2):138–153.

Fisher, W. S. 1942. A revision of North American species of buprestid beetles belonging to the tribe Chrysobothrini. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication 470, 1–275.

Linsley, E. G. & E. S. Ross. 1940. Records of some Coleoptera from the San Jacinto Mountains, California.  The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 16(2):75–76.

Nelson, G. H. 1987. Additional notes on the biology and distribution of Buprestidae (Coleoptera) in North America, II.   The Coleopterists Bulletin 41(1):57–65.

Nelson, G. H., D. S. Verity & R. L. Westcott. 1982. Additional notes on the biology and distribution of Buprestidae (Coleoptera) of North America.  The Coleopterists Bulletin 35(2) [1981]:129–152.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

“Blue-sky” tips and tricks

/ Ted C. MacRae / 4 Comments

For the past two years I’ve been working to refine my “blue-sky” technique for insect macrophotographs. This refers to careful balancing of camera and flash settings to achieve full-flash illumination of the subject while still allowing enough ambient illumination from the sky to produce a natural looking blue background. The use of flash, of course, is almost a necessity in insect macrophotography, as it’s nearly impossible to take hand-held photographs of insects, especially small ones, using only ambient light—there just isn’t enough of it to adequately illuminate the subject while using fast shutter speeds to prevent motion blur and high aperture settings to achieve acceptable depth-of-field. Flash illumination, however, has a drawback (actually several, but let’s focus on one)—if there isn’t something else close enough behind the subject to reflect light from the flash, the background will be jet black. In some cases this is perfectly fine, and it is almost always preferred over a cluttered background of jumbled branches and foliage. However, it usually doesn’t work well with darkly colored insects, and to me it gives the undesirable impression that the photo was taken at night. I suppose I could carry around colored cards to place behind the subjects that I photograph, but as a photographer who prides himself on the ability to take in situ field photographs of insects in their native habitats, something about the ‘artificiality’ of colored cards prevents me from resorting to them. A leaf placed behind the subject may be an acceptable alternative, but is usually possible only with quite small subjects (due to the size of the leaf needed) and is virtually impossible in dry, western habitats.

cf. Eremochrysa punctinervis | Gloss Mountains, Major Co., Oklahoma

cf. Eremochrysa punctinervis | Gloss Mountains, Major Co., Oklahoma

It’s hard to recommend specific camera settings for blue sky background, as they must be determined experimentally in each situation. The above photo of what I take to be Eremochrysa punctinervis (a green lacewing in the family Chrysopidae—identification via Frank & Slosser 1996) was taken with a 100mm macro lens set at f/16 and with ISO bumped up slightly to 320 (I normally use ISO 100–200) and shutter speed decreased slightly to 1/160 sec (I normally use 1/200 to 1/250 sec). The higher ISO makes the camera sensor more sensitive to light and the slower shutter speed allows more time for ambient light to reach the sensor. When aimed at the brightest part of the sky (next to but not right at the sun), these settings allowed sufficient light to register this beautiful shade of blue on the camera sensor. The ambient light alone is still not sufficient to illuminate the subject—if the photograph had been taken with these settings but without flash, the background would still be blue, but the subject and branch on which it is sitting would be nearly black! Only a flash pulse occurring while the shutter is open can provide enough light to fully illuminate the subject when the aperture setting is that high. In essence, the photo combines two exposures—a flash-illuminated subject and an ambient-illuminated sky.

Eremochrysa punctinervis | Gloss Mountains, Major Co., Oklahoma

Same photo before cloning out antennal shadowing

One problem that can be encountered when using this technique is the effect of wind. Holding the subject up against the sky exposes it to even the slightest of breezes, which can cause movement of delicate body parts such as the long antennae of this subject. What looks like blurring of the antennae is actually shading of the sky by the antennae as they fluttered in the wind. The antennae themselves were “frozen” by the very short flash pulse—much shorter than the 1/160 sec exposure, but they blocked enough light from the sky during the 1/160 sec exposure to darken the part of the background over which they moved. In the case of the finished photo shown at the beginning of the post, it was a relatively simple matter to use Photoshop’s cloning tool to remove the shadowing. Nevertheless, even more desirable is to avoid the need for such post-processing manipulations to begin with—waiting for a pause in the wind or moving to a more protected location would have obviated the need for PS cleanup.

REFERENCE:

Frank, W. A. & J. E. Slosser. 1996. An Illustrated Guide to the Predaceous Insects of the Northern Texas Rolling Plains. Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Cotton DVD, Publication #MP-1718, 24 pp.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

Plionoma suturalis in Oklahoma—a new state record!

/ Ted C. MacRae / 11 Comments

When I returned from my vacation/insect collecting trip to western Oklahoma two weeks ago, most people upon learning where I went responded with a funny look that said, “Why would you want to go to Oklahoma?” Even entomologists familiar with my inclination for beetles merely assumed I went there to collect tiger beetles and were surprised to learn that, for this trip, I was actually targeting jewel beetles (family Buprestidae) and longhorned beetles (family Cerambycidae). Jewel beetles and longhorned beetles, of course, are largely associated with dead wood, and western Oklahoma is smack dab in the middle of the Great Plains. However, this does not mean that there are no trees in the area, or that whatever trees do exist are merely western examples of pedestrian eastern species with a depauperate beetle fauna. In fact, I came to this area precisely because previous visits had seemed to indicate high potential for interesting species of woodboring beetles. On my September 2011 visit, passing through on my way back from Colorado, I found several individuals of the unusual fall-active Acmaeodera macra (representing a northern range extension), and during last year’s fall visit I found a single Chrysobothris octocola adult on a dead mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) branch—a northeastern range extension and new state record for Oklahoma! Interesting records for other species of beetles over the past few years also supported the idea that western Oklahoma was understudied and held the promise of more interesting new records for anyone willing to spend time in the area.

Plionoma suturalis (male) | Gloss Mountains, Major Co., Oklahoma

Plionoma suturalis (male) on mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) | Gloss Mountains, Major Co., Oklahoma

Nearly all of these interesting records have been found in the Gloss Mountains, a fascinating system of gypsum capped, red clay mesas in Major Co. I now regard the Gloss Mountains State Park as my “portal” to northwestern Oklahoma and can’t imagine traveling to or through the area without stopping and spending time knocking around this fascinating, brick-red landscape. Such was the case during this year’s trip, and while I had decided to spend at least the first field day in and around the State Park, the collecting was so good that I stayed for a second day and returned for a third later in the week. The beetle shown in these photos is part (and only part) of the reason why. Arriving in the morning of the first day in the field, I headed straight for the mesquite tree on which I had found the C. octocola adult last fall. It’s a common species in the southwestern U.S. that normally wouldn’t warrant any special attention, but since the Oklahoma record was based on a single specimen I wanted to see if I could find additional individuals to confirm that the species was actually established in the area and that last year’s record wasn’t just a one-off. I whacked a dead branch, and onto my beating sheet fell a C. octocola adult! I whacked another dead branch, and off fell another adult! As it was, I would find the species as abundantly here, in strict association with mesquite, as I have seen it at other locations further to the southwest. Soon after collecting the first few C. octocola adults, however, I whacked a live branch on the same mesquite tree, and off fell two large, colorful longhorned beetles that I recognized instantly as representing the species Plionoma suturalis.

Plionoma suturalis (female) | Gloss Mountains, Major Co., Oklahoma

Plionoma suturalis (female) on mesquite flowers | Gloss Mountains, Major Co., Oklahoma

Plionoma suturalis belongs to the great tribe Trachyderini. Beetles in this tribe are known for the bright colors, attraction to flowers, and diurnal (day-active) tendencies, and while we have a few species in the eastern U.S. they are far more diverse in the southwestern states. Plionoma suturalis and another U.S. species (P. rubens) are known to occur from Texas west to California and south into northern Mexico, but I immediately had the feeling that finding this species in Oklahoma was a significant record. The beetles were abundant on the mesquite trees that lined the parking lot and dotted to landscape below the main mesa, with many observed feeding on the flowers (the trees were in full bloom) and numerous mating pairs also observed. Considering its abundance at the site and possible significance of the record, I collected several dozen specimens to serve as vouchers (not to mention I had only collected a handful of specimens in all of my previous years of collecting). Checking my database later that evening (I never leave home without my computer!) confirmed my suspicions—Oklahoma was not only a new state record, but a significant northeastern range extension. In fact, the closest previous record was by Lingafelter & Horner (1993), who recorded eight specimens from Wichita Co., Texas—just over 200 miles to the south! Further, the Wichita Co. specimens were all collected in 1956, and subsequent collecting had yielded no additional specimens, leading the authors to consider the status of this species in north-central Texas as doubtful.

The female feeds on flowers of mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa)

Large number of individuals were seen feeding on mesquite flowers.

Plionoma suturalis is one of only a handful of North American longhorned beetle species in which the adults exhibit bimodal seasonal activity, with adults appearing during the spring months, disappearing during the summer, and reappearing in the fall (see  for a previous example from Missouri) (Linsley 1962). In the Lower Rio Grande Valley of south Texas (where the activity of many species of longhorned beetles and other insects is distinctly bimodal to coincide with moderate temperatures and increased precipitation during spring and fall), this species has been found on fresh-cut mesquite and huisache (Acacia farnesiana) in the fall months and on the blossoms of fabaceous trees during spring and early summer (Hovore et al. 1987).

REFERENCES:

Hovore, F. T., R. L. Penrose & R. W. Neck. 1987. The Cerambycidae or longhorned beetles of Southern Texas: a faunal survey. Proceedings of the California Academy of Science 44(13):283–334, 20 figs.

Lingafelter, S. W. & N. V. Horner. 1993. The Cerambycidae of north-central Texas. The Coleopterists Bulletin 47(2):159–191, 7 figs.

Linsley, E. G. 1962. The Cerambycidae of North America. Part III. Taxonomy and classification of the subfamily Cerambycinae, tribes Opsimini through Megaderini. University of California Publicatons in Entomology 20:1–188, 56 figs.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

A chalcidid jewel beetle parasitoid wasp

/ Ted C. MacRae / 9 Comments
Acanthochalcis nigricans | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Acanthochalcis nigricans | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

As a student of jewel beetles with an interest in their larval host plant associations, rearing has been an important tool for my studies. Through the years, I’ve retrieved literally hundreds of batches of dead wood from the field and placed them in rearing containers that I keep in my garage. It’s hard work, but the several thousand jewel beetles that I’ve reared from these batches, many representing new distributions, host associations, and even new species (e.g., MacRae 2003) clearly suggest it has been worth the effort. Of course, jewel beetles are not the only insects that emerge from this wood. Numerous other insects have shown up in the rearing containers as well, mostly beetles in other families associated with dead wood such as longhorned beetles, powderpost beetles, checkered beetles, etc. Non-beetles have been reared as well, mostly representing parasitic hymenopterans, and in this group my favorite are the chalcidid wasps (family Chalcididae). Chalcidids and some of their close relatives are instantly recognizable by their greatly swollen and toothed hind femora. Most species in this family are parasitoids of Lepidoptera and Diptera, but some parasitize other insects, including jewel beetles and especially those in the genus Chrysobothris. I have reared a few hundred of these wasps over the years, representing at least a dozen or more species and currently being identified by fellow buprestophile Henry Hespenheide. Once identified, it will be an easy matter to associate these specimens with the Chrysobothris beetles that emerged with them from the same batch of wood. From this, we anticipate that any number of new parasitic wasp/beetle host associations will be revealed.

Among chalcidid wasps, the large size and very long ovipositor distinguish this genus.

Among chalcidid wasps, the large size and very long ovipositor distinguish this genus.

The chalcidid wasp featured in this post was not reared, but rather was encountered in the field during my recent collecting trip to northwestern Oklahoma. In fact, it was the very first insect that I encountered at the very first site that I stopped at—Gloss Mountains State Park. Although the wasp was photographed on a dead branch of eastern red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana), I first saw it on a dead branch of mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa). Based on its long ovipositor and large size (~19 mm in length, including the ovipositor), I presume this to be one of the two Acanthochalcis species commonly encountered in North America, with the presence of white pubescent patches on its abdomen identifying it as A. nigricans, occurring across the southwestern U.S. from Kansas and Oklahoma to California (A. unispinosa, ranging from Texas to California, lacks these pubescent patches). This species is a known associate of Chrysobothris jewel beetles, including C. femorata and C. edwardsii (Universal Chalcidoidea Database), but in this case I believe it is associated with C. octocola—an equally large jewel beetle that I first encountered on the mesquite at this very spot last fall (a new state record!). I beat quite a few more C. octocola adults from dead mesquite branches during this trip but didn’t find any other Chrysobothris spp. associated with the mesquite. That said, it is possible that the wasp is associated with the larger of two species of Chrysobothris that I beat from the eastern red-cedar at the site (forgive me for being coy about the identity of the beetle right now, as it will be the subject of a future post). However, since all of the wasps I saw that day were originally seen on or flying around dead mesquite branches I’m betting on C. octocola.

The white abdominal pubescent patches distinguish this species from A. unispinosa.

The white abdominal pubescent patches distinguish this species from A. unispinosa.

REFERENCE:

MacRae, T. C. 2003. Agrilus (s. str.) betulanigrae MacRae (Coleoptera: Buprestidae: Agrilini), a new species from North America, with comments on subgeneric placement and a key to the otiosus species-group in North America. Zootaxa 380:1–9.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

2013 Oklahoma Collecting Trip iReport

/ Ted C. MacRae / 6 Comments

I’m back home after my week-long collecting trip to western Oklahoma, and at the risk of sounding hyperbolous I can only describe it as one of the most successful collecting trips I’ve ever had. Seriously! These kinds of trips don’t happen all that often for a variety of reasons—timing is off, rains didn’t happen, weather was uncooperative, etc. etc. Once in a while, though, everything comes together, and this was one of those times. The trip was also a return to my roots so to speak—I’ve been rather distracted in recent years with tiger beetles, but jewel beetles (family Buprestidae) and, to a lesser extent longhorned beetles (family Cerambycidae), are really the primary focus of my taxonomic studies. It had been several years since I’d had a good “jewel beetle trip,” so that was the focus of this trip. In planning the trip, I recalled seeing jewel beetle workings in several woody plant species in the same area during last September’s trip, and the occurrence of May rains seemed to bode well for my early June timing.

Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

My instincts proved to be justified—in seven days in the field I collected an estimated 1000–1500 specimens representing at least two dozen species of Buprestidae and a dozen or more Cerambycidae. More important than the numbers, I collected a number of species in good series that I have either not or only rarely collected before, and in fact the second beetle that I collected turned out to be a new state record! Of course, I also brought along my full-sized camera and associated gear and photographed many of the species that I collected. I will feature these photos in future posts, but for this post I thought it might be fun to give a high level view of the trip illustrated only with photos taken with my iPhone (which I also carry religiously in the field with me). The iPhone is great for quick snaps of scenery and miscellaneous plants and animals for which I don’t feel like breaking out the big camera, or as a prelude to the big camera for something I’d like to share right away on Facebook. Moreover, there are some types of photos (landscapes and wide-angles) that iPhones actually do quite well (as long as there is sufficient light!).

Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Atop the main mesa at Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

My first destination was Gloss Mountains State Park (Major Co.), a stunning system of gypsum-capped, red-clay mesas. I’ve already found a number of rare tiger beetles here such as Cylindera celeripes (Swift Tiger Beetle), Amblycheila cylindriformis (Great Plains Giant Tiger Beetle) and Dromochorus pruinina (Frosted Dromo Tiger Beetle), and in the past two falls I’ve found two interesting jewel beetle records: Chrysobothris octocola as a new state record, and Acmaeodera macra as a northern range extension. On this trip, I started out beating the mesquite  (Prosopis glandulosa) and immediately got the longhorned beetle Plionoma suturalis—a new state record! They were super abundant on the mesquite, and I collected several dozen specimens along with numerous C. octocola as well. I then moved over to the red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana), which was showing a high incidence of branch dieback, and collected nice series of several buprestids, including what I believe to be Chrysobothis ignicollis and C. texanus. Up on top of the mesa there are small stands of hackberry (Celtis laevigata) and soapberry (Sapindus saponaria), both of which are very good hosts for Buprestidae. Not much was on the soapberry, but I beat large series of several Buprestidae from the hackberry, including what I believe to be Chrysobothris caddo and—the real prize—Paratyndaris prosopis! My old friend C. celeripes was also out in abundance, so I collected a series to add to my previous vouchers from this site. Back down below, I marveled at a juvenile western diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) in the area where I found some more A. cylindriformis larval burrows. Daylight ran out before I could dig them up, and after 11 hours in the field I was exhausted, so I returned the next morning and got one 1st- and two 3rd-instar larvae and went back up on top of the mesa and beat several more P. prosopis from the hackberry.

Bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi) | Alabaster Cavern State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

Bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi) | Alabaster Cavern State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

My second stop was at Alabaster Cavern State Park (Woodward Co.), where C. celeripes was again abundant on the gypsum-clay exposures surrounding an impressive gorge thought to be a collapsed cave complex. I focused on beating hackberry because of the success with buprestids on this plant at Gloss Mountains SP, and although they were not quite as abundant here as at Gloss Mountains I still managed to end up with good series of C. caddo and several species of Agrilus. Because I had spent the morning at Gloss Mountains, I had only a partial day to explore Alabaster Caverns and, still getting used to the weight of the camera bag on my back, decided to leave the big camera in the car. This was a mistake, as I encountered my first ever bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi) and had to settle for iPhone photos of this species—the photo above being the best of the bunch. An approaching storm put an end to my second day after another 10 hours in the field, and I drove an hour to Woodward.

Moneilema sp. on Opuntia phaecantha | Alabaster Cavern State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

Moneilema sp. on Opuntia macrorhiza | Alabaster Cavern State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

My third day started out at nearby Boiling Springs State Park, a riparian oasis on sandy alluvium alongside the nearby Cimarron River. The woodlands are dominated by hackberry and American elm, and although a few buprestids were beaten from hackberry and honey locust (Gleditisia triacanthos), the numbers and diversity were not enough to hold my interest in the spot. After lunch, I decided to return to Alabaster Caverns SP and explore some other areas I had not had a chance to explore during the previous partial day. It’s a good thing that I did, as I ended up finding a nice population of longhorned cactus beetles in the genus Moneilema associated with prickly pear cactus (Opuntia macrorhiza). I collected a nice series of adults and also learned a few lessons in how to photograph these beetles on their viciously protective host plants. The photo above gives a taste of what will come in the photos that I took with the big camera. After eight hours in the field and darkness falling, I drove two hours to Forgan in Beaver Co.

Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

Day 4 in the field started out cold and ominous, having stormed heavily during the previous night and with thick clouds still hanging in the sky. I feared the day might be a wash but decided to venture to Beaver Dunes State Park anyway and take my chances (beating can still be productive even in cold weather as long as the foliage is not wet). It’s a good thing that I did, as the buprestids were as numerous as I’ve ever seen them. The park’s central feature is a system of barren sand dunes that are frequented by ORV enthusiasts and surrounded by hackberry woodlands. The park also has a reservoir and campground, around which are growing a number of cottonwoods (Populus deltoides).

Hackberry Bend Campground, Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

Hackberry Bend Campground, Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

These hackberrys and cottonwoods proved to be extraordinarily productive. On the former I collected large series of several species of Chrysobothris and Agrilus, and while I collected fewer Buprestidae on the latter, these included Agrilus quadriguttatus and Poecilonota cyanipes! The latter species I had never collected until last year (from Cerceris fumipennis wasps), and beating the lower branches of the declining cottonwoods produced a series of about a dozen specimens. I also got one specimen on black willow (Salix nigra), along with a few Chrysobothris sp. and what I take to be Agrilus politus. Also in a low branch of one of the cottonwoods was a bird’s nest with a single egg that, according to Facebook comments, either represents the American Robin or a Gray Catbird. (I returned the next day and saw two eggs in the same nest.)

American Robin or Gray Catbird nest w/ egg | Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

American Robin or Gray Catbird nest w/ egg | Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

As the day drew to a close, I found two interesting longhorned beetle species at the edge of the dunes: one large, powdery gray Tetraopes sp. on milkweed (Asclepias sp.), and huge numbers of Batyle ignicollis evidently perched on the yellow spiked inflorescence of an as yet undetermined plant. I have seen this species on many occasions, but always in low numbers, yet here were literally hundreds of individuals on the plants, all having assumed a characteristic pose on the inflorescence suggesting that they had bedded down for the night. I only spent eight hours in the field on this day because of the late start, and as darkness approached I began the two-hour drive to Boise City.

Black Mesa landscape

Sculpted sandstone landscape in the vicinity of Black Mesa State Park, Cimarron Co., Oklahoma

The final two days in the field were supposed to be spent exploring the area around Black Mesa in the extreme northwest corner of Oklahoma, and another hour of driving was needed to get to the area from Boise City. I first went to Black Mesa State Park, and while the landscape was stunning (see above) the area was extremely dry. I feared the collecting would not be at all productive in this area but wanted to give the area a good effort before making a call. As I approached the entrance to the park, I saw a jeep parked by the side of the road with a license plate that read “Schinia,” which I recognized as a genus of noctuid moths that are very popular with collectors. I pulled over and talked to the driver, who was indeed a lepidopterist from Denver and had just arrived himself. We talked and exchanged contact information, and learning of my interest in beetles he directed me to a small stand of Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) and one-seed juniper (Juniperus monosperma) on a sculpted sandstone escarpment not far from the park. I found the spot, and although I beat three Chrysobothris sp. from the first juniper tree that I whacked, another hour of beating produced only one more beetle from the juniper and nothing from the oak. I returned to the spot where we had met and encountered him again on his way out! We stopped and chatted again and found a few specimens of what I take to be Typocerus confluens on the yellow asters, but by then I was having my doubts about staying in the area. I told him I was going to check out a ravine in the park and then decide.

Petrified forest | Black Mesa State Park, Cimarron Co., Oklahoma

Petrified forest | Black Mesa State Park, Cimarron Co., Oklahoma

The petrified forest ended up being the only interesting thing I found in the ravine—the area was so dry that I think even the real trees were almost petrified! At any rate, it was clear that I was not going to have much success in this area. I looked at my watch, knowing that it would take three hours to drive back to Beaver Dunes, and estimated that if I left now I could get in about three hours of collecting at Beaver Dunes where I’d had so much success the previous day. Thus, I did what I rarely do on a collecting trip—drive during the afternoon!

Beaver Dune

The main dune at Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma.

A chunky grasshopper nymph inhabiting the dune

A chunky grasshopper nymph inhabiting the main dune.

I arrived back at Beaver Dunes with several hours of daylight still remaining, so I decided to take a look around the main dunes before heading towards the woody plants. I’ve actually visited Beaver Dunes previously, on the tail end of a fall tiger beetle trip in 2011. At that time I had seen only the rather common and widespread species Cicindela formosa (Big Sand Tiger Beetle) and C. scutellaris (Festive Tiger Beetle), but I thought there could still be a chance to see the much less common C. lengi (Blowout Tiger Beetle). Early June, however, is a little late to see the spring tigers, and in fact I saw only a single C. formosa. Nevertheless, I find dune habitats irresistible—alien habitats occupied by strange plants and animals, and I spent a bit of time exploring the main dune before heading back towards where I had collected so many Buprestidae the previous day.

Low water levels in the reservoir at Beaver Dunes are a result of three years of drought.

Low water levels in the reservoir at Beaver Dunes are a result of three years of drought.

Western Oklahoma, like many parts of the central U.S., has suffered rather severe drought conditions for the past several years. This was evident not only in the large amount of branch dieback seen in the woody vegetation of the area (and probably a contributor to my success at collecting Buprestidae) but also the very low water level in the park reservoir. In the photo above the small cottonwood saplings in the foreground and large cottonwood trees in the left background indicate the normal water level. Cottonwoods, of course, like to keep their feet wet, and the trees around this reservoir—left high and dry by the drought—have responded with major branch dieback and lots of subsequent adventitious sprouting at the bases of the main branches. It was from this adventitious growth that I had beaten most of the Poecilonota cyanipes that I collected the previous day, so I repeated the cottonwood circuit in the hopes of collecting more. Not only did I collect more, but I collected twice as many as the previous day, so I ended up with a very nice series of more than two dozen individuals of the species from the two days collecting. I also did a little more beating of the hackberry trees which had produced well the previous day and collected several more Chrysobothris caddo, C. purpureovittata, and Agrilus spp. such as A. lecontei, A. paracelti, and perhaps others. When I arrived I was unsure whether I would stay here the following day, but eventually I decided I had sampled the area about as well as I could and that I would go back to the Gloss Mountains for my last day in Oklahoma. Thus, as the day began to wane I began hiking back to the car and spent the next two hours driving back to Woodward to spend the night.

Steep slope below the main mesa | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Steep slope below the main mesa | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Echinocereus sp. | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Echinocereus sp. | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Arriving at the Gloss Mountains the next morning was like coming home! I’ve spent so much time at this place and found so many great insects, yet every time I come here I find something new. Today, however, my goals were more modest—I wanted to improve on my series of Paratyndaris prosopis and Chrysobothris texanus, so I focused most of my time beating the hackberry and juniper on top of the mesa and continued beating the juniper down below as well. Success! I collected four more Paratyndaris off of the hackberry, but the C. texanus were far more abundant on this day than they were earlier in the week—I probably got another two dozen individuals of this species. Of course, I also got distracted taking photographs of a number of things, so the day went far more quickly than I realized. I wanted to leave around 6 pm and get in about three hours of driving so that I would have time to make it into Missouri the next morning and have a nice chunk of time to collect before finishing the drive and arriving home on Saturday night. It was actually closer to 7:30 pm before I hit the road, the reason for the delay being the subject of a future post (I will say that BioQuip’s extendable net handle comes in handy for much more than collecting tiger beetles!).

Dolomite glades | Hercules Glades Wilderness, Taney Co., Missouri

Dolomite glades | Hercules Glades Wilderness, Taney Co., Missouri

Long Creek | Hercules Glades Wilderness, Taney Co., Missouri

Long Creek | Hercules Glades Wilderness, Taney Co., Missouri

For my last day of collecting, I decided to stop by at one of my favorite spots in the White River Hills of extreme southwestern Missouri—Hercules Glades Wilderness in the Mark Twain National Forest. I’ve been to this place a number of times over the years, but in recent years my visits have usually been late in the season to look for the always thrilling to see Cicindelidia obsoleta vulturina (Prairie Tiger Beetle). It had actually been about 25 years since I’d visited these glades during the spring, and because of the success I’d had collecting in Oklahoma I was really optimistic that I would find the same here. Sadly (and inexplicably), insect activity was very low, and it didn’t take long for this to become apparent as branch after branch that I beat along the trail through the dry-mesic forest down to Long Creek yielded nothing. By the time I got to the creek I still had not collected a single beetle. A consolation prize was found along the creek, as beating the ninebark (Physocarpos opulifolius) produced a few specimens of the pretty little Dicerca pugionata, and a couple more consolation prizes were found further up the trail approaching the main glade when I saw a Cylindera unipunctata (One-spotted Tiger Beetle) run across the trail and then beat a single Agrilus fuscipennis from a small persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) tree at the edge of the glades. It had been about 25 years since I last collected the latter species, so I was very happy to see it, but no more were seen despite beating every persimmon tree that I saw during the rest of the day. At the end of the day, I had hiked seven miles and collected only six beetles—a rather inauspicious ending to what was otherwise a wonderfully successful trip.

A rare ''selfie''

The author takes a rare ”selfie” at Gloss Mountains State Park.

Arriving back at the car at the end of the day on the last day of an extended collecting trip is always a little depressing—despite the vagaries of travel, cheap hotel beds, meals on the go, and general exhaustion, I’m never happier than I am when I am in the field. Still, the success that I’d had during this trip did much to ease my depression, and arriving home late that night and seeing my girls again (who waited up for me!) finished off any remaining depression.

© Ted C. MacRae 2013