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Photo#31104
tiny beetle - chrysomelid? - Cryptocephalus

tiny beetle - chrysomelid? - Cryptocephalus
Alachua County, Florida, USA
September 2, 2005
Size: small, maybe 5mm
On butterfly ginger, Hedychium sp..

Moved

Moved

 
Thanks, Mike and John
John, I'm impressed by your dedictation to getting this classified right!

 
Hannah, I just love chrysomel
Hannah, I just love chrysomelids and have been studying and collecting them for decades. I grew up in Florida which is a great place to study them as there are a large number of species there and the genus Cryptocephaus is very well represented there (as is Arizona I'm starting to notice). It helps to have specimens to compare so I lucked out on this photo.

Moved
Moved from Cryptocephalus.

Cryptocephalus tinctus
Cryptocephalus tinctus

 
C. tinctus not confirmed from Florida
Am moving to lateritius...

 
I checked my specimens of C.
I checked my specimens of C. lateritius (15) and all have extremely confused and double punctured striae. This specimen has mostly distinct and single punctured striae and that is what lead me to call it C. tinctus. What also leads me to believe this is not lateritius is the coloration (lighter than what I've seen) and the time of year it was found. All of my specimens of lateritius are from December, when they are most likely to occur as they are oak bud mimics.

 
I also looked at the two spec
I also looked at the two specimens of tinctus I have from Florida (Zellwood and Archibald Biological Station) and they definitely can be separated by the distinct strial rows. You don't even need magnification to see this. Like lateritius though they are fall/winter collected which suggests that they too are oak bud mimics. So I have no doubt this is a picture of C. tinctus.

 
But what about the strial row
But what about the strial rows being mostly entire instead of largely confused or of double rows? The two species are close that is for sure.

Moved
Moved from Cryptocephalini.

Det. per Ed Riley:

Cryptocephalus lateritius Newman or Cryptocephalus falli Schöller

Mike

leaf beetle
It looks a lot like my image here http://www.biosurvey.ou.edu/okwild/misc/lfbeet.html
of Crytocephalus tinctus.
But this is just a guess.

 
Yes, although the stripes are more pronounced on this one
- I think you're right as to genus. Nearctica lists 74 Cryptocephalus spp. so perhaps mine is one of the others.