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Photo#937416
Twig Borer Beetle - Oberea perspicillata

Twig Borer Beetle - Oberea perspicillata
Florham Park, morris County, New Jersey, USA
June 13, 2014
Can anyone tell me (belov maybe) what species of oberea this is and if you can guide me to how you tell the few species that all look similar apart that would be appreciated ... seems like at least 4 have the thoracic discal pair spots O.r., O.b., O.g, O.o.

Tough, tough genus...
...on which Yanega(1) did an awesome job sorting out the American species. Unfortunately, this exceedingly helpful book is not available online; I’m a lucky owner of an autographed copy. Because of the significant variability, the descriptions of interspecific differences are rather lengthy, and often involve features not seen from above, like coloration of the prothorax and/or abdominal ventrites, or the shape of the last ventrite in males.
In this particular case, however, the only viable options are O. perspicillata & O. affinis, both of whom have this highly contrasting color scheme. In the former, the callosities tend to be concolous with the rest of the pronotum, while the latter usually has its entire pronotal base black-banded, although specimens with a mere medial spot are not uncommon, either. In such rarer cases features of the underside should be used.
Bottomline, this is probably O. perspicillata, possibly O. affinis.
P.S. I was listening to this while writing, and will claim temporary insanity if charged with felony misidentification.

Moved from ID Request.

 
cane borer
Many thanks for the detail of comments the time you took that translated into my further understanding is not overlooked or underestimated - thank you very much!

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