Culicoides (Drymodesmyia) jonesi Wirth and Hubert

Phillips, Robert A., 2022, Culicoides Latreille and Leptoconops Skuse biting midges of the southwestern United States with emphasis on the Canyonlands of southeastern Utah (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), Insecta Mundi 2022 (907), pp. 1-214 : 65

Culicoides (Drymodesmyia) jonesi Wirth and Hubert

( Fig. 107 , 161, 201, 256)

Culicoides (Oecacta) jonesi Wirth and Hubert, 1960: 650 (key; numerical characters; female; male genitalia; fig. female wing, palpus, spermathecae, male genitalia, parameres; Texas).

Culicoides (Drymodesmyia) jonesi: Wirth 1965: 131 (placement in subgenus Drymodesmyia ). Wirth et al. 1985: 16 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Murphree and Mullen 1991: 323 (key; larva; numerical characters; fig. epipharynx, hypostoma, mandible).

Culicoides jamaicensis Edwards , misidentified: Wirth and Bottimer 1956: 263 (biology; Texas).

Diagnosis. ( Tables 14, 15) Dark brown; wing pattern distinct; r 2 dark; distal pale spot in r 3 bilobed and 8-shaped; pale spots at ~0.3 on M 1 and ~0.5 on M 2; two pale spots in distal half of anal cell; tips of M 1, M 2, CuA 1 pale; most of CuA 1 and CuA 2 within dark areas; pore of sensory pit on palpal segment 3 <0.3 the diameter of segment, widening internally (as in Fig. 248 C. sitiens ); combined distal five flagellomeres (including intersegmental spaces) on female distinctly shorter than combined proximal eight; pale band subapical on fore femora, basal on all tibiae; spermathecae unequal by ~1.2×, ~1.7× longer than wide, opening ~0.3 as wide as spermatheca, without necks; mean male wing length 0.86 mm (n = 7); ventro-posterior membrane of male sternite 9 not spiculate; ventral apodeme of gonocoxite simple; aedeagus V-shaped, straight-sided until flaring truncate tip ~0.25 width of arm spread, aedeagal ratio ~0.3; parameres separate, apices simple pointed bent.

Distribution. Arizona (Greenlee County, new state record), New Mexico (USNM), Texas. Ten males and ten females were collected with UVLT on 10 October 2019 at 32.96215°N 109.30566°W and 1056 m elevation in Arizona. This collection site was in the northwest portion of the Chihuahuan Desert ( Brown 1982), as was R. H. Jones’s C. jonesi collection site in Big Bend National Park, Texas ( Wirth and Hubert 1960), suggesting C. jonesi may be the Chihuahuan Desert counterpart to the closely related Sonoran Desert inhabiting C. sitiens .

Larval ecology and adult behavior. Culicoides jonesi has been reared from Opuntia lindheimeri Engelmann (Cactaceae) ( Wirth and Hubert 1960). My Arizona collection was from an area with abundant cholla ( Cylindropuntia ) and barrel cactus ( Ferocactus ) and included five other cactiphilic Culicoides species ( Table 9). However, its adult hosts are unknown though the mandibular and lacinial teeth on the female indicate it feeds on vertebrate blood.

Wirth and Bottimer (1956) reported their earliest Texas collection of C. jonesi adults was 18 February, and their latest was 20 October.

Figures

Figures 104–109. Male genitalia of Culicoides subgenus Drymodesmyia, ventral view. 104) C. butleri (Greenlee County, AZ). 105) C. butleri (Gila County, AZ [FSCA]). 106) C. cacticola, bottom of basal arch of aedeagus delineated (San Diego County, CA [BM]). 107) C. jonesi (Greenlee County, AZ). 108) C. sitiens. 109) C. torridus, height (h) of basal arch of aedeagus indicated (San Diego County, CA [BM]).