Culicoides (Amossovia) cochisensis Wirth and Blanton

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 : 45-46

Culicoides (Amossovia) cochisensis Wirth and Blanton

( Fig. 101 , 155, 191)

Culicoides cochisensis Wirth and Blanton, 1967: 218 (key; female, male, pupa; fig. female antenna, wing, eye separation, spermathecae, leg, palpus, male genitalia, parameres; Arizona; paratype records show Culicoides villosipennis Root and Hoffman record for Utah was a misidentification). Wirth et al. 1985: 20 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Wirth et al. 1988: 30 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Murphree and Mullen 1991: 330 (key; larva; numerical characters; fig. epipharynx, mandible, hypostoma, caudal segment).

Culicoides (Amossovia) cochisensis: Borkent and Spinelli 2000: 27 (in Neotropical catalog).

Culicoides villosipennis Root and Hoffman , misidentified: Bullock 1952: 24 (misspelled as “villosopennis”; key; female [male description invalid]; Utah: Salt Lake County). Rees and Bullock 1954 (misspelled as “villosopennis”; Utah: Salt Lake County).

Diagnosis. ( Tables 14, 15) Dark brown; wing pattern distinct; r 2 dark; distal pale spot in r 3 medially constricted and roughly C-shaped; pale spots straddling at ~0.2 on M 1 and ~0.4 on M 2; CuA 1 and CuA 2 within dark areas except at tip of CuA 1; pore of sensory pit on palpal segment 3>0.5 the diameter of segment (as in Fig. 247 C. californiensis ); pale band subapical on hind tibiae, absent from hind femora and subapically from fore and mid tibiae; ventral apodeme of gonocoxite simple; aedeagus Y-shaped, median process slender to pointed tip; parameres separate, apices simple, pointed.

Distribution. California, Utah (Salt Lake City), Arizona, Baja California. The only Utah record is of a female collected at a window in Salt Lake City 14 September 1952 ( Bullock 1952). The other collection records are from the Sonoran Desert; hence, it is likely not resident in Utah, and the record is of a transient.

Larval ecology and adult behavior. Culicoides cochisensis larvae have been collected from water in a pocket of a saguaro cactus ( Carnegiea gigantea [Engelmann] Britton and Rose, Cactaceae ) ( Wirth and Blanton 1967). However, its adult hosts are unknown, though the mandibular and lacinial teeth on the female indicate it feeds on vertebrate blood.

Figures

Figures 100–103. Male genitalia of Culicoides, ventral view. 100) C. californiensis, left edge of paramere (P), right edge of aedeagus (A), lateral aedeagal spines (As). 101) C. cochisensis (Cochise County, AZ [UCRC]). 102) C. oklahomensis, aedeagus filaments circled (LA [FSCA]). 103) C. pampoikilus (Cochise County, AZ [UCRC]).