Apiomerus cazieri - a valid name at last

 Today I went out to photograph some small bee assassins. I find this species every in Saguaro National Park West when the Brittle Bush blooms. When I came home I looked up what had happened to the species name of this insect since I had first seen it in 2008. It was a somewhat convoluted story:
 In April 2007 J. Dockens posted her observation of a small Apiomerus from the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona, on BugGuide, and Eric Eaton identified it as Apiomeris cazieri.
A year later our most active Assassin Bug expert D.R. Swanson commented 'This has actually been bugging me (no pun intended) for awhile. There is no mention of Apiomerus cazieri in Henry and Froeschner's catalog (1988). I also have the revision of the genus by Costa Lima (1951) in front of me and there is no mention of A. cazieri there either. In fact, I cannot find a single literature record for this species. Now that doesn't mean there isn't one, of course, but it does have me curious and albeit it, a bit skeptical.'

So how did this discrepancy come up and who was right at the time?
Eric Eaton, then living in Tucson, had access to the University of Arizona Insect Collection, and there in the reduviid drawers were several Arizona specimens of a small bee assassin clearly labeled Apiomerus cazieri. But Carl Olson, the collection manager, told me the strange of those labels:  
The specimens had been part of the type series of  Leopold Szerlip's description of a new species for his doctoral dissertation. A Berkeley grad student at the time, Szerlip completed a biosystematic analysis of the Apiomerus of North and Central America in 1980 as the topic of his doctoral dissertation. Unfortunately other than qualifying him for his PhD, nothing more was done with the information; a paper was never published. As a result, the 19 new species erected within it were invalid.

 But at the same time, no other scientist felt comfortable to do any work on the group because of this existing manuscript. At BugGuide and at the U of A specimens kept coming up that were carefully designated as  Apiomerus crassipes species group (crassipes species group) with 'A. cazieri' added  in quotation marks. We all knew that 'A. cazieri' was a 'good' species, easily recognizable by its small size and the early spring appearance of the adults, but we also knew that the name was invalid.

While we were still scratching our heads Ted C. MacRae got the ball rolling in 2009. He wrote:
'Dimitri Forero, a Postdoctoral Researcher in Christiane Weirauch's lab at University of California-Riverside, has just responded to my discussion about this situation on my website and informs me that it will be rectified soon. A Masters student in their lab is revising the species concepts of Szerlip and adding a phylogenetic analysis, while Dimitri is dealing with the rest of the fauna in Central and South America. Best of all, Szerlip will be a coauthor of the Masters student's work validating his names. I think this is a fantastic outcome - not only will Szerlip's names be published, but he will get the credit he deserves and benefit from a modern phylogenetic analysis. Soon, we will be able to say Apiomerus "floridensis" (and Apiomerus cazieri) without the quotation marks!'

Then, finally in 2011 Ted C. MacRae posted: Resolution!

'Apiomerus floridanus and several other species have now been formally described in the following hot-off-the-press publication:
Berniker, L., S. Szerlip, S. Forero & C. Weirauch. 2011. Revision of the crassipes and pictipes species groups of Apiomerus Hahn (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Harpactorinae). Zootaxa 2949:1–113.'

 

 Anyone who is wondering how the validity of a species name is controlled and tested should turn to the code of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and consult this scheme;  names from Szerlip's unpublished thesis would have been disqualified in the second line.

With this blog, I would like to make one point very strongly: When research is done at a public university it not only takes the work of the one researcher. It usually also takes resources from tax dollars, lab space, a position that others would love to have.... But beyond that, keeping the research community in limbo needlessly by not publishing is unethical in my opinion. I understand that there are lots of reasons for delays, and I do not know what exactly caused it in this particular case, but still....

But what really surprised me most in this case was that this little Apiomerus that is so distinctly different from others in the crassipes group had been overlooked for so long and was not described before 1980. Of course, I have the advantage of living right in the middle of its habitat, so I see some of them every year when the Brittle Bush blooms in Saguaro National Park West. The reason for the late discovery may have been that early spring is not one of the most interesting times for all those collectors who usually arrive for the monsoon bugs. So keep your eyes open, Arizona still has more to offer!

Assassin Bugs of Arizona

As a preparation for the BugGuide gathering 2013 in Arizona, I pulled BugGuide's data for Assassin Bugs in Arizona. I found that my own photos are the basis for many of the existing species pages. I also found that I had taken white background photos of all but one of the AZ species that are represented on BugGuide. The one missing was  Pseudozelurus arizonicus photographed by D.R. Swanny from a museum (UMMC) specimen. D.R. Swanny also did most of the identifications and I gave him many of my specimens, so I'm sure that he doesn't mind that I included his photo in the tableaux below.

1 Stenolemoides arizonensis; 2 Emesaya sp.; 3 Zelus tetracanthus ; 4 Zelus renardii; 5  Castolus ferox; 6  Apiomerus cazieri; 7 Apiomerus flaviventris; 8 Apiomerus sissipes; 9 Apiomerus longispinis, 10 Fitchia aptera; 11 Heza similis; 12 Pselliopus marmorosus ; 13 Pselliopus zebra; 14 Rasahus thoracicus; 15 Melanolestes picipes; 16 Rhynocoris ventralis; 17 Homalocoris erythrogaster; 18 Sinea rileyi; 19 Sinea diadema

1 Macrocephalus dorannae; 2 Lophoscutus sp.; 3 Phymata sp.; 4 Pseudozelurus arizonicus; 5 Narvesus carolinensis; 6 Oncocephalus geniculatus; 7 Reduvius sonoraensis; 8 Rhiginia cinctiventris; 9 Triatoma protracta; 10 Triatoma recurva; 11 Triatoma indictiva, 12 Triatoma rubida, 12a Triatoma rubida nymph

There is a lot of work in these tableaux. Since I composed similar collages of other Arizona insect families, I have learned several things: to always store my work as png files so I can go back and move the elements around. To keep the species names in the legend instead as part of the image file - it's easier to correct mistakes and to follow changes in taxonomy that are inevitable. Last, but not least, to post only a small watermarked version on the internet. My ladybug plate showed all intentions to go viral after it was posted on pintrest, turned up in an African language blog, and on several gardening web sites, but by then it had lost all connections to my name and copyright.

Prints of these and other insect plates are available. Please contact me at mbrummermann@comcast.net

Life cycle of the Giant Mesquite Bug, Thasus neocalifornicus

Photo by Terry Ketron

Lately I have received several inquiries about clusters of colorful 'Beetles' that are clinging to the leaves and seed pods of Mesquite Trees in Southern Arizona. Luckily, photos from omnipresent cellphones cameras accompanied the questions. It turned out that the 'beetles' were actually the nymphs of true bugs, of Giant Mesquite Bugs, Thasus neocalifornicus. (a revision of the genus by Brailovski et al in 1994 states that this is the only species of the genus in the United States, while T. acutuangulatus and T. gigas occur only south of the Mexican border).


How to tell a beetle from a true bug
Beetles and many true bugs are often confused because superficially they can look quite similar, as the picture of Paranthesis Ladybeetle and Harlequin Bug shows. But at closer investigation their morphology and life cycle are very different and they are therefore grouped in different taxonomic orders.


Beetles (Coleoptera) are the largest order of insects. From above, the body of a typical beetle shows three obvious parts:
the head with compound eyes, chewing (in most species) mouth parts, and antennae that can vary in shape and usually have more than 10 antennomeres.
the pronotum, which covers the prothorax.
the hard forewings or elytra which cover the membraneous flight wings and the rest of the body like a shell. A small scutellum may be visible where the two elytra and the pronotum come together.

The mouth parts of True Bugs (a specific group of Hemipterans) form a tubular rostrum in accordance with their piercing sucking function (true bugs suck!). The antennae have only 4 big antennomeres and are long, thin and angular. The pronotum is usually as wide as the base of the wings. A very conspicuous triangular scutellum is located behind the pronotum between the wing-bases. The forewings are hard only in front and membraneous towards the tips. The borders of the scutellum and the dividing line between those wing parts forms a conspicuous X that helps to easily recognize the group.


The Life cycles of beetles and true bugs shows how very different they really are
Both beetles and true bugs hatch from eggs. Beetle larvae are elongate and may superficially resemble caterpillars. They eat voraciously and shed their skin repeatedly to allow for growth. But they still look like grubs until they finally pupate. During the immobile pupa stage their bodies undergo radical changes to become the winged, sexually active adults that we know as beetles (complete metamorphosis).

Even newly hatched True Bug nymphs vaguely resemble their parents in shape, if not coloration. They go through a fixed number of moults ,5 in most cases. Each resulting instar is a step closer to the size and shape of the adults until they emerge from the last moult winged and ready to propagate (incomplete metamorphosis).


Timing is everything
Lets follow the development of a cluster of Giant Mesquite Bug eggs that were deposited by last year's generation, maybe in a protected spot under loose bark of a Velvet Mesquite Prosopis velutina in Sabino Canyon close to Tucson. In late April, mesquite leaves unfold explosively to shroud the somber, deciduous tree in lush fresh green within a couple of days. This is also the major blooming season of the mesquite trees.


At this time little nymphs hatch from the eggs, feed on the leftovers, and almost immediately moult for the first time. If they are not already on their food tree (we found many clusters in the shrubbery underneath the mesquites) it's now time to climb up to those fresh, juicy mesquite leaves.

First instar nymph and first molt

Second instar nymph

The second instar nymph is already recognizable as baby Giant Mesquite Bugs by the characteristic diamond shaped antennal discs of the species.

Third instar nymphs Photo by Tuan Cao

The bright red, black and white pattern becomes even more conspicuous in the third instar. The nymphs are still staying closely together as a group, projecting the appearance of a much bigger animal and probably of a very bad tasting one.

Wing buds are have appeared in the 4th instar Photo Ned Harris

They can afford to stay together because they don't have to compete for food: While the nymphs are getting bigger and hungrier, the tree has begun to put a lot of resources into the production of long, juicy mesquite beans. The pods themselves, not just the seeds, are sugary sweet. Over centuries the people of the southwest have used this abundant resource for flour and to feed countless cattle. Even Coyotes rely on the pods for 80% of their summer diet. Javelina scat is full of them. Sucking the juice of these fast growing seed pods, amazing numbers of mesquite bug nymphs are able to grow quickly to their astonishing adult size without any obvious harm to the tree.

This year spring came late to the foothills of the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. So the mesquite beans are still growing and the bug nymphs are still in their last, 5th, instar close to the end of June.

5th instar (left)Last molt (right) Photos Ned Harris

By the time the monsoon moisture rolls up from the Golf and the July heat begins to pile up huge thunderheads over the Catalinas, the mesquite beans will be ready to fall to the soaked ground to be swept away by running washes until the pods rot and set the seeds free to germinate. By then the mesquite bugs will have turned into huge adults with strong legs that can cling to branches during afternoon storms and fly to disperse and meet their mates in the heat of the day. The adults are about 2 inches long.

Female (left) and male (right) adult Giant Mesquite Bug

mating group (below)

They often congregate to mate

A collage of the nymphal instars and an adult male

Bugs and Beetles from Aravaipa Canyon

Last Sunday we had visitors from Texas and Germany who were mostly interested in mantids and ants. May is by no means the best time to find either. Mantis nymphs are still tiny and ants are not swarming, so their queens are deeply entrenched under their mounds and layers of rock and caliche. Turns out the two guys couldn't visit later in the season because of the impending Soccer World Cup.


We decided to go to Aravaipa Canyon in Pinal County, AZ. We had no time to get permits for the actual Wildlife Preserve and instead stayed in the more open, less dramatic western part of the canyon. This area only hints at the dramatic beauty of the deeper chasm of the preserve, but is still very attractive with it's year-round running creek.

Following is just a pictorial list of insects that I was glad to find, even if most of them weren't first sightings.



Beetles, Coleoptera

Griburius montezuma, Glyptoscelis pubescens, Disonycha alternata, Plagiodera arizonae, all Chrysomelidae

Necrobia rufipes Cleridae, Ulus crassus Tenebrionidae, Lixus semivittatus CurculionidaeCanthon sp., Aphodius haemorrhoidalis, Aphodius vittatus, all Scarabaeidae

Olla-v nigrum Coccinellidae, Chrysobothris sp. Buprestidae, Cymindis sp. Carabidae, Laemosaccus sp. Curculionidae

True Bugs, Heteroptera

unidentified Mirid, Ochrimnus sp., Lygaeidae, Gelastocoris oculatus, Gelastocoridae

Crophius sp., Oxycarenidae, Leptoglossus clypealis, Coreidae, Rhopalus tigrinus, Rhophalidae, Neurocolpus arizonae, Miridae

More little Toad Bugs to come!

Collecting Methods

We found all these critters by whacking bushes over a beating- sheet, fishing around in muddy algae, turning over the leathery corps of a long dead cow, going through dung of very much alive cows...the usual.

One of our group, though, showed his true dedication by trapping an over four-feet-long snake in the leg of his trousers. Luckily only one and a half feet went up, and luckily it was only a Gopher Snake.