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Photo#1332926
Aphalaroida spinifera? Male? - Aphalaroida spinifera - male

Aphalaroida spinifera? Male? - Aphalaroida spinifera - Male
Rio Rico, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, USA
January 16, 2017
Size: 1.8 mm
Found sweeping mesquite. Note one of the wings has an extra vein joining Cu1 and Cu2.

Images of this individual: tag all
Aphalaroida spinifera? Male? - Aphalaroida spinifera - male Aphalaroida spinifera? Male? - Aphalaroida spinifera - male Aphalaroida spinifera? Male? - Aphalaroida spinifera - male Aphalaroida spinifera? Male? - Aphalaroida spinifera - male Aphalaroida spinifera? Male? - Aphalaroida spinifera - male Aphalaroida spinifera? Male? - Aphalaroida spinifera - male

Moved
Moved from Aphalaroida. I'm going to tentatively refer this one to spinifera as well; I think the perceived paramere shape discrepancy is a product of the angle and it seems to otherwise be consistent with this species.

Moved
Moved from Psylloidea.

Aphalaroida, closest to A. spinifera
Great find Salvador. The glandular hairs all over the body and forewings put it in the spinifera/ rauca / prosopis / pithecolobia group, and the apparent lack of a costal nodal break on the wing rules out prosopis / pithecolobia. The simple shape of the male forceps would seem to suggest spinifera; in rauca the anterior face is strongly concave, and in pithecolobia and prosopis there is a subapical anterior appendage. Unless the angle is playing tricks on me or the subgenital plate / aedeagus is obscuring something, spinifera looks best.

Also in agreement with spinifera is the shape/venation of the wing and the relatively long setae on the head/thorax. In this regard I see little difference between this and the pithecolobia currently in the guide ID'd by Ray Gill, however, I am skeptical of those IDs as I struggle to make out any key characters. The wing pattern is not a perfect match to Hodkinson's illustrations (of any species) but is closest to spinifera in that the dark spots do not congregate into larger indefinite dark blotches. I'm not sure about the extent of individual variation on wing pattern for this particular species.

Also - That's an interesting wing aberration. I've seen many psyllids with extra wing veins but I don't think I've seen one like that.

If you happen to run into more of these, males or females, I'd love to see them. Seeing several of these may help to assess which characters are due to individual variation.

Fantastic photos as always!

 
Thank you Chris!
for your detailed explanation, time, and attention. Also for your kind comment about my photos. Dr. Jason Botz shared with me the 2001 Hodkinson paper (Journal of Natural History, 25:5, 1281-1296) and viewing its diagrams and reading the species descriptions made me suspect that this was A. spinifera, but there seem to be some differences and could not really find a perfect match. I first took the photo of the wing with the aberration and I assumed the other wing was identical. Jason advised me to view the other wing and, to my surprise, the venation was different!
I will keep an eye open for these critters and hopefully will come across many more specimens to reach a more definite conclusion.

 
Nice! glad we could both arrive at the same tentative conclusion
Best of luck in any future attempts to find more of these. All four of the aforementioned glandular-hair species are found in SE AZ, so perhaps you may have success in finding multiple species in your area reminiscent of your Calinda success back in NM/TX.

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