Culicoides (Selfia) hieroglyphicus Malloch

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 : 81-82

Culicoides (Selfia) hieroglyphicus Malloch

( Fig. 37 )

Culicoides hieroglyphicus Malloch, 1915: 297 (key; female; fig. mesonotum; Arizona). Hoffman 1925: 280 (key; female; fig. wing, mesonotum). Root and Hoffman 1937: 158 (key; female; male genitalia; fig. male genitalia). James 1943: 148 (in part; seasonal distribution; Colorado). Wirth 1952a: 176 (key; female; male genitalia; distribution; fig. dorsal thoracic pattern, female palpus, male genitalia). Knowlton and Kardos 1951: 163 (Utah: Kane, Washington counties). Bullock 1952 (key).

Culicoides (Selfia) hieroglyphicus: Khalaf 1954: 38 (subgenus Selfia Khalaf ; designated C. hieroglyphicus as type species). Foote and Pratt 1954: 24 (key; diagnosis; fig. female wing, mesonotum, palpus, male genitalia). Fox 1955: 241 (key and diagnoses of subgenera; species key; taxonomy). Wirth and Bottimer 1956: 263 (Texas ecology). Jones 1961a: 737 (key; pupa; fig. respiratory trumpet, operculum, cephalothoracic chaetotaxy). Atchley 1967: 962 (key; numerical characters; female; male genitalia; variation; feeding habits; fig. female wing, palpus, male genitalia, parameres). Atchley 1970: 242 (key; female, male, pupa, larva; 33 fig.). Atchley 1971b: 60 (pupa; geographic variation; comparison with C. denningi and C. jamesi ). Atchley 1973: 630 (female, pupa; comparison with C. denningi and C. jamesi ). Downes and Wirth 1981: 415, 418 (fig. male genitalia, spermathecae). Wirth et al. 1985: 32 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Wirth et al. 1988: 56 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Murphree and Mullen 1991: 363 (key; larva; numerical characters; fig. mandible, epipharynx). Borkent and Spinelli 2000: 37 (in Neotropical catalog).

Diagnosis. ( Tables 14, 15) Brown; wing without pattern of pale spots; three unsclerotized or faintly sclerotized long fingerlike spermathecae; male scutellum with six setae; hind tarsomeres with apical spines; posterior margin of male sternite 9 with pair of prominent caudomedial lobes ~4× longer than wide; gonocoxal apodeme simple, expanded distally, without hooklike process; gonocoxite not abruptly expanded basally; apex of gonostylus expanded foot-shaped, without tooth; aedeagus Y-shaped; parameres fused, longer than wide, median process 3–4× longer than wide, tonguelike.

Distribution. California, Nevada, Idaho (Bonneville County, new state record), Wyoming, South Dakota, south through Utah (Carbon, Garfield, Grand, Kane, San Juan, Uintah, Washington, Wayne counties), Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Sonora, to Baja California, Durango, Aguascalientes. Reports for Montana in Root and Hoffman (1937), Foote and Pratt (1954), and Fox (1955) were erroneous ( Atchley 1970).

Larval ecology. Atchley (1970) collected pupae from small to medium and fresh to alkaline warm stream and river margins at 1280–1650 m elevation in Carbon, Garfield, Grand, Kane, San Juan, and Wayne counties, Utah. The most productive habitat was in a small alkaline wash southwest of Cisco (47 km north-northeast of Moab) in Grand County with density of several hundred immatures per dm 2, along with some C. occidentalis or C. sonorensis (as C. variipennis ). The coldest collection site was in Wayne County, which had a water temperature of 22 °C and also had small numbers of C. jamesi . The other Utah sites had water temperatures>27 °C and no other Selfia species. Jones (1961b) reared many immatures from mudflats from a hot spring in Texas and few from lake margins in Oklahoma —exceptional habitats for this species.

Adult behavior. Known hosts are sheep ( Jones 1965; however, Atchley [1970] questions this may be for C. denningi ), jackrabbit ( Atchley 1970), burro ( Jones et al. 1977), and horse ( Elbel et al. 1977; Jones et al. 1977). In Weld County, Colorado, C. hieroglyphicus was most active during daylight hours April–October ( Barnard and Jones 1980b).

Symbionts. A female—likely C. hieroglyphicus —collected in Grand County was parasitized by a shriveled, and melanized mermithid nematode. Three females and an intersex male collected in Greenlee County, Arizona, were also parasitized by mermithids ( Table 11). In addition, Atchley (1967, 1970) reports a high incidence of intersex males parasitized by mermithid nematodes near Glenwood, Catron County, New Mexico; and my collections near the Gila River in Greenlee County, Arizona, and Grant County, New Mexico, included many C. hieroglyphicus parasitized by larval mites ( Table 10).

Figures

Figures 37–40. Male genitalia of Culicoides, ventral view focused on aedeagus. 37) C. hieroglyphicus, basal arms of aedeagus (Aa), tip of median process of aedeagus (At), gonostylus (Gs), sternite 9 caudal lobes (S9cl). 38) C. jamesi. 39) C. jacksoni, paramere shoulder (Ps), apodeme of gonocoxite (Gca) tooth (t), tip of median process of paramere (Pt). 40) C. tenuistylus, parameres (P) (Ventura County, CA).