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Photo#725582
Plegaderus sp., dorsal - Plegaderus

Plegaderus sp., dorsal - Plegaderus
Sandia Mountains, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, USA
October 7, 2012
Size: 1.54 mm
Download high resolution image here.

I found this beetle under the bark of a decaying pine log on Tree Spring Trl. (No. 147), 9300 ft, Sandia Crest 7.5’ quadrangle in the Sandia Mountains, Bernalillo Co, NM. I collected a few of these beetles along with a few Paromalus debilis at this spot. Both species originally had a few to many Histiostoma sp. phoretic mites attached. They have been cleaned off of this specimen, but left on the other for reference.

This is probably the same species as one Arlo Pelegrin posted from Colorado. Hopefully, these higher resolution images will help someone determine what the species is.

This image is from a CombineZP processed stack of 223 images with a 3.6 µm step taken with a Mitutoyo BD Plan APO 20X/0.42 ∞/0 mm microscope objective + Nikon 105 mm F2.5 AI portrait lens + Nikon D300 camera (magnification 10.5X; technique described here).

Images of this individual: tag all
Plegaderus sp., dorsal - Plegaderus Plegaderus sp., lateral - Plegaderus Plegaderus sp., ventral - Plegaderus