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Photo#1427749
St. Andrews leaf miner on Desmodium paniculatum SA1051 2017 1 - Pachyschelus laevigatus

St. Andrews leaf miner on Desmodium paniculatum SA1051 2017 1 - Pachyschelus laevigatus
Laurinburg, Scotland County, North Carolina, USA
August 21, 2017
Pachyschelus

Images of this individual: tag all
St. Andrews leaf miner on Desmodium paniculatum SA1051 2017 1 - Pachyschelus laevigatus St. Andrews leaf miner on Desmodium paniculatum SA1051 2017 2 - Pachyschelus laevigatus

Moved
Moved from Pachyschelus.

Adults emerged.

 
How were adults determined?
Do they always have to be dissected?
I ask because of this rearing:

 
Dissection
Genitalia are the only known way to distinguish P. confusus from P. laevigatus. Even then, they are so similar that Henry Hespenheide is unable to distinguish them; he told me that Norm Woodley is able to, so I've been sending specimens to him for verification. Norm told me that the type series of P. confusus includes specimens of P. laevigatus, so even the people who described the former species couldn't always tell the two apart (or maybe they didn't dissect every specimen). No one has ever reared P. confusus, so it's possible that it has a different larval host from P. laevigatus.

 
I wanted something easier.
For instance, since P. confusus has never been documented from Iowa, we could be pretty close by saying these reared ones on known host plants of P. laevigatus are P. laevigatus (with some sort of caveat).
PS. I'm a lumper.

 
I'm with you
Given how many times I have now reared P. laevigatus, I'm inclined to assume all mines on the known hosts of P. laevigatus are P. laevigatus until we have reason to believe otherwise. And if the two species turn out to have the same hosts and have genitalia differences so subtle that even a buprestid taxonomist can't tell them apart, I see no point in considering them to be separate species.

 
OK,
To move (Pachyschelus on known host plant) to P. laevigatus or not, that is the question? And if yes, what would be proper wording as to the the possibility that this ID could change with more and better information?

 
Well...
I'm a little confused, because the rearing you're asking about is of a parasitoid wasp, and the associated beetle has already been moved to species, with appropriate caveats noted in the comments. As to the wasp ID, I have actually reared another Conura species from P. laevigatus but it isn't all black, and C. melana has been reared from that beetle many times, so that's probably a safe ID.

 
Sorry for the confusion.
The two photos of the leaf cell are posted as Pachyschelus not Conura. I'm also readying a successful rearing post of the beetles (part of this same collection) so, in part, was asking a preemtive question as to their placement to P. laevigatus rather than Pachyschelus.

 
I see
It seems fine if you want to move/post to the species page, with the caveat that there is a remote possibility that the beetles are P. confusus. You could just link to this discussion.

 
Will do.
Thank you very much.

Moved

 
Hopefully not dead yet?
Hopefully not dead yet?

 
No
Both larvae have spun cocoons.

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