Lasiopogon sp.? - Lasiopogon bitumineus

Moved

… Ken Wolgemuth, 27 April, 2014 - 5:29pm

Lasiopogon n.sp.

Good find! This is an undescribed species of Lasiopogon I'm writing up in my dissertation (I'm revising the bivittatus group in the genus). The official name will have to wait until the paper is published, but for now Rob Cannings and I refer to this species as "biv-4". They're distinguishable in the field by the long thoracic bristles and dark brown color (as opposed to the other local species L. littoris, which is silvery-grey).
Until this year, there were only 5 specimens known in total, all from 40+ years ago. But this year I also was hunting around there in March and collected many more, so now we have a bunch of specimens for museums, dissections, and DNA analysis. I was collecting in the area on 5-6 March (of 2014) and they weren't out yet, but by 12 March they were out by the hundreds on the back dunes. I found them at Montana de Oro and the Oceano dunes; there's also a record from Oso Flaco lake. I thought they were especially abundant on the sand among mock heather.
Yours will add a new county to the records! I'm assuming this is from the Vandenburg base Coast Rd again? Any more precise localities where you documented this critter would be useful, or any other information for that matter. For example, I'm interested in the yearly phenology-- you say they're tapering off now, which is right around when I'd imagine L. littoris has started to come out in force. When I was there, I only found a single L. littoris, on 12 Mar; nothing like the dozens I've seen out in April and hundreds out in May. But what do your boots on the ground say?

… Tristan McKnight, 26 April, 2014 - 5:47am

Lasiopogon

This individual was photographed on Vandenberg, but was on north base, I can send you an approximate locality if you need it. The others that I had previously observed were seen during the week of March 11 off of Coast Road again. I don't specifically recall seeing any L. littoris at that time. I did, however, go to Oso Flaco Lake on March 14 (in an unsuccessful search for Ablautus sp.)and there were L.littoris everywhere there (but none of these dark guys); I was chasing down pretty much every small potential robberfly I saw that day.

I don't specifically remember seeing L. littoris around when I shot this individual, but I wasn't looking for them. Later in the day, I did go to Surf beach on Vandenberg, and I did see L. littoris there. But at Surf, I was chasing therevids which forced me to focus on L. littoris like flies.

I guess I don't want to make any concrete statements about L. littoris abundance since I suspect that whether I saw them or not was heavily influenced by whether or not I was looking for them.

… Alice Abela, 26 April, 2014 - 9:42am