Mycetophagus didesmus (Say) - Mycetophagus didesmus

Moved tentatively

Moved from Litargus.

… v belov, 19 May, 2012 - 9:43pm

Moved

… v belov, 12 November, 2011 - 6:15pm

Any further thoughts on this one?

I just found a beetle in my samples (from a fungus in VA) that looks identical to this one, and I've been looking it over in Parsons' 1975 mycetophagid revision, and comparing this photo with the key as well. Neither my specimen or this guy seems to bear much similarity with L. balt*eatus as described by Parsons. For one thing, according to Parsons the terminal antennomere of L. balt*eatus should be as long as antennomeres 9 & 10 together; also, we'd expect it to be asymmetrically sharpish-pointed. These characters can be +/- clearly seen on the other L. balt*eatus pages here in bugguide, and are fairly distinctive compared to other Litargus spp as illustrated in Parsons. Granted, he does describe it as "an unusually variable species," but it seems odd for two similarly misfit specimens to appear in TX and VA (apologies for not having a photo of mine posted yet--I'll try to post one soon). Does anyone have any new thoughts on this beetle, or know a mycetophagid expert who would be willing to offer an opinion? I think it would be best to bump this back to the genus page in the meantime.

… MJ Epps, 12 November, 2011 - 5:27pm

happy to hear from you again!

still waiting for your pix of fungiphilous beetles & other bugs...
pls post that other one from VA and i'll circulate your photos around -- nobody seems to focus on this family in this hemisphere but several people may know the fungi-associated fauna quite well

… v belov, 12 November, 2011 - 6:19pm

Moved

Moved from Beetles.

… Blaine Mathison, 3 July, 2010 - 8:30pm

not so sure at all...

pronotum doesn't fit

… v belov, 3 July, 2010 - 9:02pm

clubs a bit diff. too...

… Mike Quinn, 3 July, 2010 - 10:04pm

yup

… v belov, 3 July, 2010 - 11:28pm

yeah

I was hesitant, the gestalt didnt sit well with me, but based on my experiences with this species in AZ, it can be highly-variable. We can move back to genus for now, pending further analysis.

There is actually a little teneb in AZ that looks like this too, and the two used to throw me off! Maybe I'd better look into that too :)

… Blaine Mathison, 4 July, 2010 - 12:33pm

this is no teneb [if you mean Alph. diap.]

… v belov, 4 July, 2010 - 12:36pm