Culicoides (Selfia) jamesi Fox

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 : 82-83

Culicoides (Selfia) jamesi Fox

( Fig. 38 )

Culicoides jamesi Fox, 1946: 244 (female; male genitalia; fig. female mesonotum, wing, palpus, male genitalia, parameres; Montana). Wirth 1952a: 178 (key; female; male genitalia; fig. dorsal thoracic pattern, female palpus, male genitalia).

Culicoides (Selfia) jamesi: Khalaf 1954: 38 (assignment to subgenus Selfia ). Foote and Pratt 1954: 26 (key; diagnosis; fig. male genitalia). Fox 1955: 243 (key and diagnoses of subgenera; species key; taxonomy). Jones 1961a: 737 (key; pupa; fig. respiratory trumpet, operculum, anal segment). Atchley 1967: 965 (key; numerical characters; female; male genitalia; fig. female wing, palpus, tibial comb, male genitalia). Jorgensen 1969: 19 (key; quantitative characters; female; male genitalia; seasonal distribution; fig. female wing, palpus, antenna, male genitalia, parameres). Atchley 1970: 269 (key; female, male, pupa, larva; 24 fig.). Atchley 1971b: 65 (pupa; geographic variation; comparison with C. denningi and C. hieroglyphicus ). Atchley 1973: 630 (female, pupa; comparison with C. denningi and C. hieroglyphicus ). Wirth et al. 1985: 32 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Murphree and Mullen 1991: 364 (key; larva; numerical characters; fig. epipharynx).

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 cleft, without caudomedial lobes; gonocoxite slightly tapering, not basally expanded or bent; gonocoxal apodeme with a small posterior mesally directed hooklike process; apex of gonostylus markedly expanded and foot-shaped, without tooth; aedeagus elongate, almost parallel-sided, without median cross-bar; parameres fused, longer than wide, median process ~3× longer than wide, tapering tonguelike.

Distribution. British Columbia, Alberta ( Lysyk 2006), Montana, South Dakota, south through Washington, Idaho (Blaine County, new state record), Wyoming, Oregon, Nevada, Utah (Box Elder, Duchesne, Garfield, Grand, Kane, Morgan, Summit, Uintah, Washington, Wayne counties), and Colorado, to California, Arizona, New Mexico. Khalaf’s (1957) record of C. jamesi from Oklahoma is dubious ( Atchley 1970).

Larval ecology. Culicoides jamesi seems to have wider ecological tolerance than other Selfia species, being distributed over the entire western United States except for the extreme Desert Southwest. Jones (1961b) collected immatures from the nonvegetated sunlit margin of an alkaline stream near Cisco (47 km north-northeast of Moab), Grand County, along with immatures of a Stonei group species (as C. stonei ), C. occidentalis or C. sonorensis (as C. variipennis australis ), C. haematopotus (may be C. defoliarti ), C. grandensis (as “n. sp.”), and C. crepuscularis ; and from a freshwater seep in Garfield County, along with C. sonorensis (as C. variipennis ) and C. haematopotus (may be C. defoliarti ). Atchley (1970) collected pupae from mud margins of small cold (19–21 °C) shallow pools in a freshwater stream with weedy vegetation at 2320 m elevation in a spruce-Douglas fir forest in Duchesne County; from the margin of a warm (27–30 °C) freshwater stream at 1600 m elevation in a pinyonjuniper woodland in Kane County; and from cold stream mudflats at 1800 m elevation in Garfield County. He also reared immatures from New Mexico and Wyoming, and from a small shallow highly polluted creek at 730 m elevation in Montana, which also had lesser numbers of C. denningi . In addition, McMullen (1978) reared C. jamesi from mud from a stream in a heavily manured pasture in British Columbia.

Adult behavior. Known hosts are cow ( Jorgensen 1969) and horse ( Atchley 1970).

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).