Species Pepsis basifusca

Pepsis basifusca Lucas, 1895

Pepsis angustimarginata Viereck, 1908

The epithet angustimarginata (Latin roots: "angusti-" = narrow; "marginata" = margined(1)) presumably refers to the rather uniformly narrow dark marginal borders of the fore and hind wings in this species.

Similarly, the epithet basifusca (Latin roots: "basi-" = basal; "fusca" = dusky, brown or darkened) presumably refers to the typically darkened base of the wings.

BL = ♂ 11-22mm; ♀ 16-27mm (2)

Wings largely orangish, with rather uniformly-narrow dark borders along the margins of the fore and hind wings...which begin near the tip of the marginal cell, bend around the apex of the wing, and continue along the posterior edge to near the axillary excision. They also have a fairly large basal portion of the wing opaquely-darkened.

Antennae entirely black.

This is one of the 4 western NA species (the others being azteca, cerberus (=menechma), and mildei) with males having distinctive, dense, "hair brushes" on the lateral edges of the 4th sternite of the abdomen. (Females may have some short, sparse inconspicuous hairs on their sterna...but lack dense "hair brushes").

Far eastern CA and far southern NV; AZ, UT, NM, w. TX, CO, KS, and AR.(3) (Also south through Mexico to Panama).

This species was described by Viereck in 1907 as Pepsis angustimarginata and treated under that name by many authors working on nearctic Pepsis in the 20th century, e.g. Banks(1921), Salman(1930...see pg. 146), Hurd(3)[1952], Townes(4)[1957], and the catalog of Krombein(5)[1979]).

However, recently C. R. Vardy(2)(2005), with a deeper knowledge and familiarity of the neo-tropical Pepsis fauna (where the majority of species occur) than the earlier nearctic authors cited above, placed P. angustimarginata in synonymy under P. basifusca, whose range is mainly south of the US. That name-change was presaged to a certain degree in the discussion of angustimarginata and its relationship to basifusca in Hurd(3)(1952).