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Photo#908546
Lordotus - female

Lordotus - Female
McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Maricopa County, Arizona, USA
March 22, 2014
Size: 7 mm
Size estimated. Several of these were feeding on Brittlebush on a pleasant spring day.
I think (!) I have the genus correct. Confirmation/refutation appreciated, as well as any more specific ID.
I think (!) this is a female, based on the separated eyes. Another image I took at this site of an associated Lordotus is a presumed male, with eyes touching on the "forehead":


Antennal shape and black coxae crucial to species ID here
I recently made two posts of males very similar to your post of the male associated with the female here.

So I have been studying the literature...and it indicates, as Joel mentioned below, that females in the "zona group" (species zona, pulchrissimus, luteolus, diversus and diplasus) are very similar looking overall.

To separate diversus and diplasus from the others, one needs to scrutinze the shape of the the lower half of the 3rd antennal segment.

Depending on whether the 3rd antennal segment is "appreciably broadened on basal half" or "more linear in outline", one is led to either "diversus and diplasus" or "zona, pulchrissimus, or luteolus", respectively.

Detail of the 3rd antennal segment is hard to see in your image, but it looks more linear to me. Compare with the drawings of antennae for diversus and "zonus" (=zona) in Figs. 48 and 46 here, respectively.

Next, the coxae here appear black (rather than yellow), which would eliminate species zona...leaving either pulchrissimus or luteolus.

The final couplet in the key of Hall & Evenhuis(1) separates the above two as follows:

58a. Hypopleuron with white hair; pleura white pilose......pulchrissimus58b. Hypopleuron bare; pleura pale yellow pilose.............luteolus
I can't really make a good call there, but I think your down to those two.

(More complete details of the key in Hall & Evenhuis(1) for a female in the "zona group" are laid out in my comment here.)

 
thanks for info
Thanks for that information, Aaron. Nice to narrow down the possibilities--looks like one really has to have specimens in hand to get to the species.

Lordotus
Yes, this is Lordotus. This is in the group related to L. zona, but ID to species is difficult, especially from photos.

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