Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Clickable Guide
Moths Butterflies Flies Caterpillars Flies Dragonflies Flies Mantids Cockroaches Bees and Wasps Walkingsticks Earwigs Ants Termites Hoppers and Kin Hoppers and Kin Beetles True Bugs Fleas Grasshoppers and Kin Ticks Spiders Scorpions Centipedes Millipedes

Calendar

TaxonomyBrowseInfoImagesLinksBooksData
Photo#766809
Timema sp. - Timema poppense - male

Timema sp. - Timema poppense - Male
Santa Cruz, University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, California, USA
May 3, 2013
Size: ~25-30 mm
We found this Phasmid (at the time had no idea what it was) on our car on the way home from UCSC--not exactly sure when it hitched a ride, but the car was parked in a redwood forest edge zone on campus. Sorry, can't give any more details there.

Moved
Moved from Timema.

Nice find
As far as I know (i.e. from studying the literature listed here, as well as info and images online), there are three species that occur in the Santa Cruz area: T. californicum, T. poppensis, and T. douglasi.

T. poppensis and T. douglasi are "look-alike" species, with T. poppensis being a sexually reproducing species, and T. douglasi being a partheonogenetic (i.e. all female, asexually reproducing) species. The recorded host plants for both these species are Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga mensiezii) and redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). From the form of the terminalia, your specimen is male...which presumably eliminates T. douglasi.

Beyond that, a number of characters visible in your image convince me this is T. poppensis, rather than T. californicum. The most conspicuous of these is the clear presence of the pair of dark lateral + medial stripes. But the most crucial character (i.e less prone to possibly misleading variability) is the detailed shape of the terminalia, which consist of two cerci and the intervening "intra-dextral process" (which lies between the cerci, but much closer to the dextral (=right) cercus).

When I first saw your photo, the wide flanges on both the dextral and sinistral (=left) cerci, together with the central narrowing of the intra-dextral process...when combined with the dorsal stripes...made me think: "Aha! We've got T. poppensis!".

And after carefully reading the original description of that species on pg. 45 of Vickery & Sandoval (1999a), the extremely close agreement with (nearly all the many) character descriptions there convince me that your individual here is indeed T. poppensis.

For reference citations, and lots more info on these fascinating creatures, see the Timema info page. (And if you or your friends are UCSC students, consider doing a senior thesis on Timema :-)

 
Thanks, Aaron
Thanks very much for your detailed and instructive reply! Gotta love BugGuide. I'm employed at UCSC as the Campus Natural Reserve steward, and work with lots of motivated undergrads---I'll keep the Timema thesis idea in mind!

 
I'm with you...
...I love BugGuide :-)

And if any of those students show great promise...send them to Randy Morgan! (The wonderful wizard of (Santa Cr)Oz! :-)

Moved
Moved from ID Request.

Comment viewing options
Select your preferred way to display the comments and click 'Save settings' to activate your changes.