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Photo#1713712
Orphulella punctata - male

Orphulella punctata - Male
Midway Campground, Collier County, Florida, USA
August 16, 2019
Initially ID'd as O. pelidna; properly determined Dec 2020. In flat grassy campground situated in bald cypress swamp.

Images of this individual: tag all
Orphulella punctata - male Orphulella punctata - male

Moved
Moved from Orphulella.

 
Awesome!!

 
Range...
Any guesses on how far north this would/could range? I have to track down my FL stuff, but I caught a few things up in Highlands Co. around Avon Park. I'll have to doublecheck it now.

 
O. punctata
I finally got around to running my specimens through Otte's keys. This seems to be a new U.S. record. There are no other photos of it on BugGuide, but quite a few iNat observations ranging from about Ft. Lauderdale to Homestead (earliest one from 2013). So I think ones from up in Avon Park would probably be regular O. pelidna. I have typical O. pelidna from Archbold Biological Station and around Sebring. You can see more on the guide page which I have populated with some info.

Will be interesting to see how far it may spread. I wonder how long ago it was introduced?

 
South FL
Forgot about iNat, I was just looking at that as well. I'd say you're right, for now all the stuff around Highlands Co. is most likely O. pelidna. This is most likely a new US record, so that'll be a fun little writeup somewhere! I actually just remembered, I was in Miami last year and went on a quick collecting trip one evening, so I definitely need to check those.

I'd guess it'll be able to spread through a good chunk of FL at least. Maybe survive in south TX if it ever shows up here. For the earliest record being 2013 (at least per iNat), it doesn't seem to have spread all that far. Though they aren't the strongest fliers, so that could be limiting the spread to an extent. It may be worth picking through some of the specimens in university collections down there from the past maybe 20 years or so to see if it pops up there too. Very cool!

Key results?
What'd it key out to? I've got a couple weird ones from Florida as well.

 
haven't keyed it yet
Been too busy with the start of the semester and trying to get out collecting as much as possible before frost :) Will update here once I do get to it.

 
Understandable
Good hunting out there! :)

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