Culicoides (Monoculicoides) grandensis Grogan and Phillips, 2008

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 : 70-71

Culicoides (Monoculicoides) grandensis Grogan and Phillips

( Fig. 53 , 173)

Culicoides (Monoculicoides) grandensis Grogan and Phillips, 2008: 196 (diagnosis, male, female; fig. female antenna, palpus, spermatheca, wing; male genitalia; Utah: Grand County). Grogan and Lysyk 2015: 9 (key; diagnosis; bionomics; assignment to “ C. nubeculosus - stigma complex”; not “n. sp. 113”). Shults and Borkent 2018: 458 (key; numerical characters; female pupa; fig. dorsal apotome).

Diagnosis. ( Tables 14, 15) Pale brown; wing with faint pattern; in r 3, m 1, m 2, cua 1 extensive and more of dark irregular curves and pale streaks than ovoid spots; scutum without dark spots at seta bases; legs without apparent banding; mandibular and lacinial teeth vestigial; one sclerotized spermatheca, ovoid, with opening>0.5 the diameter of the spermatheca, without neck; aedeagus bare, entire; parameres fused basally.

Distribution. Utah (Grand County).

Larval ecology. Jones (1961b) collected C. grandensis (as “n. sp.”) pupae 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. jamesi , and C. crepuscularis .

Adult behavior. The absence of mandibular and lacinial teeth on the female indicates C. grandensis does not blood-feed.

One female was incandescent light-trapped 18 September 2001 at 38.54606°N 109.59159°W in Grand County. Additional data from Jones’s 30 May 1958 collection of two pupae reared with a probable emergence date of 20 June 1958 ( Grogan and Phillips 2008) are also included in the seasonal distribution (Table 5).

Remarks. Culicoides grandensis was originally thought to be Willis Wirth’s and Antony Downes’s “n. sp. 113” ( Grogan and Phillips 2008). It is now thought that “n. sp. 113” is likely Culicoides stigma (Meigen) ( Grogan and Lysyk 2015) .

Figures

Figures 50–55. 50) Culicoides sonorensis male wing. 51) C. occidentalis male wing. Spermathecae. 52) C. crepuscularis. 53) C. grandensis (paratype). 54) C. sonorensis. 55) C. sonorensis, lateral view (anterior to left) of female mesonotum showing prescutal pit (presct pit) and dark patches around seta bases.