Culicoides (Selfia) jacksoni Atchley

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

Culicoides (Selfia) jacksoni Atchley

( Fig. 39 )

Culicoides (Selfia) jacksoni Atchley, 1970: 258 (key; female, male, pupa, larva; 30 fig.; New Mexico). Wirth et al. 1985: 32 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Murphree and Mullen 1991: 364 (key; larva; numerical characters; fig. mandible, 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 concave or 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 rounded blunt clublike, without tooth; aedeagus Y-shaped, with moderately sclerotized median cross-bar connecting the heavily sclerotized basal arms; parameres fused, longer than wide, with heavily sclerotized abrupt knoblike shoulders at ~0.5, median process 4–5× longer than wide, narrow, parallel-sided fingerlike.

Distribution. California, Utah (Duchesne, Grand counties), Arizona, New Mexico.

Larval ecology. Atchley (1970) collected pupae 12 July 1968 from mud margins of small cold (19–21 °C) shallow pools in a freshwater stream with weedy vegetation at 2300 m elevation in a spruce-Douglas fir forest in Duchesne County, Utah. His New Mexico collection of larvae and pupae were from a similar habitat having 17 °C water at 2200 m elevation in a pine-Douglas fir forest. And, Breidenbaugh and Mullens (1999a) collected an adult female above 823 m elevation in Riverside County, California, that laid 85 eggs, which hatched 5 d later at 21–25°C, and which larvae fed on bacterial-feeding Pelodera nematodes in the laboratory.

Adult behavior. The mandibular and lacinial teeth on the female indicate it feeds on vertebrate blood; and though its hosts are unknown, the SCo presence on only the proximal flagellomeres suggests it is mammalophilic.

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).