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Photo#1171660
Case-Bearer Chrysomelid - Cryptocephalus castaneus

Case-Bearer Chrysomelid - Cryptocephalus castaneus
Fish Slough, Inyo County, California, USA
June 6, 2012
Found on flowers of the rhizomatous perennial yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica), growing in alkaline meadow habitat.

This looks like a case-bearer chrysomelid to me. The only ones I could find on BugGuide having four black longitudinal stripes on the pronotum were in the "Cryptocephalus cupressi group".

A different individual, from the same flowers, same place, and same few minutes in the afternoon is posted below:

 

Images of this individual: tag all
Case-Bearer Chrysomelid - Cryptocephalus castaneus Case-Bearer Chrysomelid - Cryptocephalus castaneus

Moved
Moved from Cryptocephalus.

Moved

 
Thanks, Blaine...and I think I've got it to species now
Using the key in the 1968 revision of Cryptocephalus by White[cite:212163,15], this went as best as I could see to C. castaneus.

It seems to fit reasonably well within the (relatively wide) bounds of variation given in the description there. And elytral pattern in shown in Fig. 57 is also a reasonable fit (again, modulo the variation present in the species). Moreover, C. castaneus is known mainly from California...106 of the 109 confident specimen locations mentioned in White[cite:212163,42] are from CA, 2 from AZ, and 1 from NM. (I don't have access to the more recent 2003 leaf beetle catalog of Riley, Clark, & Seeno(1)...which may give more detailed range info and references.)

All the above also applies to the other individual I photographed at the same time, locale, and plant colony in the post below:

   

It's also of interest that I found these beetles on Anemopsis californica, in light of the comment by Clark et al here, as well as Margarethe's post below on the same plant species. Margarethe's post is again within the (relatively wide) spectrum of variation described for C. castaneus, although it's a different color form than mine, and has a different pattern of elytral markings (corresponding more to that shown in Fig. 56 of White):

   

This would be the first "transmontane" CA record on BugGuide (i.e. the locale here, at the north end of the arid Owens Valley, is just east of the mighty Sierra Nevada...a significant biogeographical barrier).

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