Jason! I have started collecting mirids and I am using Knight's Miridae of the Nevada Test Site as my reference for Miridae at this point. Any tips for ID'ing these critters from specimens would be much appreciated - getting a good look at the claws and arolia is clearly one problem for me to even get to subfamily - I may need to make slides of a claw or get a higher mag scope... :) Feel free to email me if you get time. Thanks again!

It's definitely a challenging (and rewarding) group to get into! And it is all about the claws and arolia (or pseudarolia) to get started on an unknown specimen. There's a lot of convergence in body form between subfamilies (hence names like Pseudopsallus), and I get tripped up a lot myself. In your photo of the tarsal claws of this specimen, though it's not very sharp, one can just make out a shadow of the arolia between the claws, bending toward each other and nearly touching. That's a good sign that it's in the Orthotylinae. I hope you'll keep at it and enjoy your adventure with the mirids!