Mantisfly Gathering_2008 - Leptomantispa pulchella

Moved

Moved from Dicromantispa sayi.

Thank-you Patrick and thank-you Dr. Hoffman!

… Stephen_WV, 22 November, 2008 - 4:42am

modification to identification

Stephen, I had e-mailed Dr. Kevin Hoffman, author of genera Dicromantsispa, Leptomantsispa, etc., and he informs me today (11/21/08) via e-mail that these are, in fact, Leptomantsispa pulchella.

… Cotinis, 21 November, 2008 - 6:48pm

how to tell from Leptomantispa pulchella?

Oh dear. I got photos of this one, too (here). Looking at references and images we have here, in particular:

That is identified as Leptomantispa pulchella, but it looks virtually identical to me. If size of any help here, the body length of this individual was 13 mm.
Marshall (1), photo 255.2, says there is a "yellow form" of Dicromantispa sayi. How to tell it apart from L. pulchella?
Cannings and Cannings, 2006. The Mantispidae (Insecta: Neuroptera) of Canada (PDF), say that L. pulchella is found in East, south to Georgia at least.

… Cotinis, 27 October, 2008 - 2:08pm

On further examination, I like Leptomantispa a lot

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this looks like Leptomantispa pulchella, not Dicromantispa sayi based on the descriptions in Cannings and Cannings, the only ones readily available. A perhaps definitive character in their descriptions is that the pterostigma is orange in Leptomantispa pulchella and brown in Dicromantispa sayi. The pterostigma looks orangish to me in Stephen's photo, and even more so in my photo of the same individual here:

Another possible character, visible in photographs here, but not mentioned by Cannings, is that the antennae are all dark (except for one basal segment) in Leptomantispa pulchella, but photos we have here of undoubted Dicromantispa sayi seem to show a few outer segments yellow, in addition to mabye a couple of yellow basal segments. (We may have some images mislabeled as D. sayi--there is a problem!)
The side of the abdomen on our photos from Tennessee, and the images John Oswald identified as Leptomantispa pulchella have prominent thin stripes, not, apparently, present in Dicromantispa sayi. I believe this agrees with Cannings' description.
I hope to hear from the experts, but I'm about as convinced as I can be at my limited level of expertise. As I said, one problem we may have is mislabeling of some of our "Dicromantispa sayi"--they may be Leptomantispa pulchella.

Here's another individual photographed at the station the previous morning--it had also been found on the hood of a car:

… Cotinis, 27 October, 2008 - 11:15pm

Steven Cresswell taking this shot.

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/7661394-md.jpg

… Timothy Robert Nichols, 11 August, 2008 - 8:58pm

Action Shots

Hi Tim, you should post a few of your "action" shots here:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/209650/bgimage

… Mike Boone, 13 August, 2008 - 8:27am

Sneaky

Very sneaky! I didn't know that, like the Mantisfly, I was being photographed.

… Stephen_WV, 12 August, 2008 - 6:18am

ooh, ahh

watching these posts from the gathering come up one by one is like watching the fireworks on the 4th of July. :) Nice one.

… Lynette Elliott, 11 August, 2008 - 4:46pm