Species Tetraopes mandibularis

Tetraopes mandibularis Chemsak 1963

12-15 mm (1)

last antennal segment gradually tapering apically, antennal segments without fringes of very long hairs at apices,

mandibles of male with very large, prominent dorsal tubercle extending for about half their lengths,

elytra with sutural spot always present and occasionally a post-humeral spot. (1)

TX-OK (w. OK and panhandle region of TX) (1)(2)(3)(4)

Type Locality: Childress, Childress Co., Texas; Collected by J. Mitchell, 1906

asso. w/ Asclepias latifolia in the Llano Estacado region of northwestern Texas and adjacent Oklahoma (2)(3)

Jun-Aug (1)(2)(Chemsak 1963)

Host: Broadleaf Milkweed - Asclepias latifolia (1)(2)(3)(5)

This uncommonly encountered milkweed beetle is found in western Oklahoma and the panhandle region of Texas.

Forty-nine individuals were found in association with T. femoratus LeConte on Asclepias latifolia in Texas: Dickens Co., Double Rafter Ranch, 30-VII/29-VIII-79, 2/8-VII-80, [Marlin E. Rice]. Chemsak (1963) indicated that when a single host is utilized among two sympatric milkweed beetle species, one species is usually much less numerous than the other, and during a two year period, ca. 200 A. latifolia growing in a fallow field, yielded fewer T. mandibularis than T. femoratus, with the ratio being 1:3.2. (2)

Tetraopes texanus, Tetraopes quinquemaculatus (1)

Chemsak, J.A. 1963. Taxonomy and bionomics of the genus Tetraopes (Cerambycidae: Coleoptera). University of California Publications in Entomology 30(1): 1-90.

Type Info - Smithsonian