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Photo#1650664
Undescribed desert Adela species - Cauchas trifascia

Undescribed desert Adela species - Cauchas trifascia
Plum Canyon, Anza-Borrego State Park, San Diego County, California, USA
March 24, 2019
Size: Body Length: 5.6 mm
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Netted, briefly chilled, photographed, and released unharmed onto Phacelia after it revived.

Note the relatively small & widely-spaced eyes. That together with the relatively short antennae (for Adela) would usually suggest a female...but the constant fluttering without landing within the creosote stems suggested something along the lines of male lekking behavior. At this point it's not clear to me whether this species conforms to the "small, well-separated eyes & shorter antennae ⇒ female" rule that applies to many other Adela species.

For further info, see remarks under 1st image in this series.

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Undescribed desert Adela species - Cauchas trifascia Undescribed desert Adela species - Cauchas trifascia Undescribed desert Adela species - Cauchas trifascia Undescribed desert Adela species - Cauchas trifascia Undescribed desert Adela species - Cauchas trifascia Undescribed desert Adela species - Cauchas trifascia

Moved
Moved from Adela.

Plum Canyon Adelid
Arron,

This is indeed an Adelid. It is an undescribed species of Cauchas, which have shorter antennae than Adela spp. Did you discover it independently? If so that suggests that it is common there in Plum Canyon. I have not been there. There are specimens in the Cal Academy collection. We expect that the species will be described by Don Davis in his (and Matt Medeiros') forthcoming monograph of the western hemisphere Adelidae.

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