Omus californicus ? - Omus

Is this a male?

I noticed the upper three tarsi of the front legs (see 2nd image) have densely hairy "pads". This distinguishes males from females, according to pg. 305 of Willis (1968), which treats Cicindela sensu lato (i.e. the tribe Cicindelini in current BG circumscription).

I'm wondering if this "tarsal pad" character also works for distinguishing males in Omus and other genera in the subfamily Cicindelinae?

… Aaron Schusteff, 2 August, 2012 - 11:41pm

Postscript to above comment

I'm guessing the answer is "yes"...since Pearson & Vogler(1) state , in their general discussion of tiger beetles (including genus Omus and others), that: "Males of all species have white tarsal pads of long curved setae on the front legs...". (See pg 20.)

… Aaron Schusteff, 5 August, 2012 - 9:13pm

There's that,

and of course the aedeagus protruding from the abdomen. Yes a male.

… Dennis Haines, 10 October, 2013 - 5:20pm

That's pretty amusing

Guess I didn't notice the obvious in hindsight...literally :-)

Or maybe, in my ignorance, I was thinking that might be a protruding "wasp-like" ovipositor.

… Aaron Schusteff, 10 October, 2013 - 8:27pm

...

… Aaron Schusteff, 10 October, 2013 - 8:16pm

Omus "ambiguus"?

At present I'm working to try and make some sense of the genus Omus. This specimen comes from the area where Omus ambiguus was described from. Unfortunately I don't have many specimens from the area and as yet have not moved my studies to cover much of northern California. My work in central California shows that Mont Cazier's lumping of most of the California species into O. californicus did not serve the genus well. If you ever have the opportunity to collect more material for me to look at I would greatly appreciate it.

… Dennis Haines, 10 January, 2012 - 11:10am

Wow!

I didn't appreciate the enormity of the task you've undertaken...until I saw the list of previously named entities within Omus californicus in Freitag's catalog. It goes on for about 5 pages...more than 80 for that species alone!!

… Aaron Schusteff, 5 August, 2012 - 9:35pm

118 species described...

and I'm not sure if that includes O. xanti, which was never properly described by LeConte, just given a suggested name. We still don't know where that one truly came from. My effort this year is to gather DNA from most of the "accepted" species that existed before Cazier lumped them all into O. californicus. There are about 13-15 taxa possible.

… Dennis Haines, 1 May, 2013 - 3:40pm

Moved

Moved from Beetles.

… Blaine Mathison, 27 February, 2011 - 2:49pm

Moved

Moved from Beetles.

… Kevin Hall, 26 February, 2011 - 2:04pm

Moved

Moved from ID Request.

… Kevin Hall, 26 February, 2011 - 2:04pm