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Photo#300261
Buprestid - Poecilonota montana

Buprestid - Poecilonota montana
Fish Creek Park, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
July 1, 2009
Size: 18 mm
Collected from poplar. Keyed from "The Insects and Arachnids of Canada Vol. 15: The Metallic Wood-Boring Beetles of Canada and Alaska (1987)" and compared with online images from the U of A. Entomology collection. Species can be recognized by the angulate lateral margins of the pronotum and the pubescent abdominal sterna (in ventral shot).

Images of this individual: tag all
Buprestid - Poecilonota montana Buprestid - Poecilonota montana

Moved

Moved
Moved from Poecilonota ferrea.

Identity
Please refer to my comment of June 25, which I called to the attention of two fellow bup specialists. With their permission, here are their replies:

Stan Wellso (edited for clarity). "After looking at the specimens I have of P. ferrea (9) and P. cyanipes (14) the specimen is difficult to identify from a photo. Overall it appears to have the shape of ferrea, especially size 18mm (Evans (1957), some females are 19.4 while cyanipes largest is close at 17.9mm, but most of mine are much smaller) and pronotum. Most of my cyanipes have a more elongated elytral tip and are definitely much more reddish than the beetle in the photo you sent. Specimens of ferrea have been taken in Alberta on Populus. I would tend to say that it is P. ferrea, but would like to see the specimen. The reddish color on the elytra tip is very atypical for ferrea, as no mention is made of it in the 42 males and 53 females that Evans studied. That is about as far as I can go relative to the picture you sent."

Ted MacRae. "I agree it doesn't look like P. ferrea that I have (a pretty good series from Indiana), especially with the reddish elytral apices. I'll bet it's P. montana. Isn't the best character for separating P. ferrea from other spp. the shape of the lateral prosternal channels?"

I am going to agree with Ted on this, especially after further checking; this does not fit P. ferrea. The "prosternal channels" I have found to be a difficult character, but of course we cannot see them here.

Identification
To me this seems to better match P. montana, perhaps even P. cyanipes, than it does P. ferrea. Specimens of the latter that I have seen appear more elongate, and they do not have coppery-red color at the elytral apex. I will ask colleagues to weigh in on this, which is more important now that the image has appeared in a publication. Images can be deceiving--so too can keys! This specimen and any others that might have been collected at the same place on the same hosts should be examined more closely by one of us.

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