Culicoides (Drymodesmyia) ryckmani 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 : 65-66

Culicoides (Drymodesmyia) ryckmani Wirth and Hubert

(Fig. 113, 167, 219, 220, 262)

Culicoides (Oecacta) ryckmani Wirth and Hubert, 1960: 656 (key; numerical characters; female; male genitalia; fig. female wing, palpus, spermathecae, male genitalia, parameres; Arizona).

Culicoides (Drymodesmyia) ryckmani: Wirth 1965: 131 (placement in subgenus Drymodesmyia ). Wirth et al. 1985: 16 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Wirth et al. 1988: 28 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Borkent and Spinelli 2000: 31 (in Neotropical catalog).

Culicoides copiosus , misidentified: Wirth 1952a: 191 (female; male genitalia; fig. female wing, palpus, male genitalia). Ryckman 1953: 164 (biology). Fox 1955: 232 (in part; key and diagnoses of subgenera; species key; taxonomy).

Diagnosis. ( Tables 14, 15) Dark brown; wing pattern diffuse, relatively faint; r 2 dark; distal pale spot in r 3 simple, elongate parallel with M 1, ~2× longer than wide; isolated pale spot at ~0.5 on M 2, faint at ~0.3 on or touching

anterior to M 1 or absent; one pale spot in distal half of anal cell; tips of M 1, M 2 dark; 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 ); tibiae without subapical pale band; spermathecae subequal, subspherical, tiny, smaller than flagellomere 1; ventro-posterior membrane of male sternite 9 not spiculate; ventral apodeme of gonocoxite simple, much more slender and often shorter than the broad, pointed dorsal apodeme; aedeagus V-shaped, truncate tip ~0.2 width of arm spread, aedeagal ratio ~0.36; parameres separate, apices simple pointed bent.

Distribution. California, Utah (Washington County, new state record), Arizona, Texas, Baja California, Baja California Sur.

Larval ecology. Culicoides ryckmani has been reared from rot holes in Opuntia , Carnegiea gigantea , Pachycereus pringlei , and Pachycereus schottii ( Ryckman 1960) . Apparently, C. ryckmani uses a wide variety of cacti as larval habitats: the California specimens I collected were from an area where the cacti flora was predominately several Cylindropuntia and Opuntia species, with a few Ferocactus , Echinocereus , and Mammillaria ; and the Utah specimens were collected from an area where only Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa was present.

Adult behavior. Blood-engorged females have been collected from the occupied nest of a house finch ( Haemorhous mexicanus ) ( Ryckman 1960). Mullens and Dada (1992b) collected C. ryckmani with CO 2 -baited traps and, more abundantly, at window lights.

Symbionts and atypical biology. A male I collected in Mohave County , Arizona, was parasitized by a larval mite ( Table 10); and a female collected in San Diego County, California, by S. Anthony had three fully developed spermathecae instead of two with a vestigial third ( Table 12) .