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Photo#494559
Carinodulinka baja Slipinski & Tomaszewska - Carinodulinka baja

Carinodulinka baja Slipinski & Tomaszewska - Carinodulinka baja
Santa Monica Mts, Los Angeles County, California, USA
March 3, 2009
image courtesy M.S. Caterino, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

the first member of the tribe Carinodulini in our fauna

likely to be new
Given the disjunction, and the flightless habit, I'd be willing to bet this would prove to be a different, undescribed species. We have another specimen from near Palm Springs, also likely to be something undescribed. Just because a genus is originally defined as monotypic doesn't mean you can put the same name on all specimens and expect to be correct; I wouldn't ID this as C. baja until and unless one of the original authors has had a chance to examine it.

 
Nice bug...
any ideas what their habitat is? This page is completely empty on my upcoming field guide and I can't find anything about it at all...Also wouldn't mind coming across it given I live here.

I traced some observations to the middle of a dense woodland, so assume if that is accurate that it must have some association with trees?

 
have you checked the orig. description and the Cali. beetle DB?

 
Yep
Cal DB has two points as above, both in middle of woodland. Description does not mention habitat.

Given its shape maybe it lives in bark, would hate to guess though.

 
the are some info there
the S&T paper says, " features suggest that it is a litter living beetle"; the DB entry, "Prunus litter" and "Prunus/Heteromeles"

not sure how did you miss that

 
Saw both sites
On the DB I saw the coordinates, location, date, etc. details on the additional details page and assumed that was it. Didn't realize the + button led to extra info.

Oh well.
Thanks for the help.

I saw the point about it possibly being a leaf litter bug, but again I didn't want to guess when it comes to making field guide information. Such a weird bug...will have to keep an eye out for it whenever I come across these plants...both genera are common here. I wonder what time of year adults are about other than March.

you rock!
So does this incredible creature. You did it, you found a coccinellid that I never heard of! (I admit I counted antenna segments a few times to convince myself.)

wow!!!
I can't believe that's a coccinellid. Sweet!

 
I wonder how long it took for
I wonder how long it took for someone to figure this one out...nice set of contributions you've been putting out lately :)

 
glad you like'm
took long enough... the genus & sp. were described a couple of years ago

 
you're not alone, man...
i can't begin to imagine in which trays the specimens might have been sitting scattered in collections

 
Yeah
if I saw this unidentified I would think mayne an endomychid near Holoparamecus (which also doesn't look close to its brethren).

 
Holoparamecus kin was indeed my first reaction