Mantura floridana Crotch

Eiseman, Charles S., 2014, New Host Records and Other Notes on North American Leaf-Mining Chrysomelidae (Coleoptera), The Coleopterists Bulletin 68 (3), pp. 351-359 : 358

Mantura floridana Crotch

Clark et al. (2004) state that this beetle normally feeds on species of Rumex L. ( Polygonaceae ), with a single record on another polygonaceous plant, Persicaria perfoliata (L.) H. Gross. That record referred to adults, which were found only rarely on this host—more rarely than the legume-feeder Odontota dorsalis (Wheeler and Mengel 1984) —so this cannot be considered a definite larval host. Clark et al. (2004) list several other reported plant associations but consider them unusual, and apparently none of these refer to larval hosts. On 8 June 2013, I found larvae of M. floridana mining leaves of Fallopia scandens (L.) Holub ( Polygonaceae ) in Belchertown, Massachusetts. The mines were whitish and serpentine, on the upper leaf surface, with frass in irregular dark lumps and strings. In one case, four larvae were mining in a single leaf ( Fig. 16 ). They were able to exit and establish additional mines in new leaves. On 9 June, a wandering larva burrowed into soil the instant it was given the opportunity. I was unable to observe the larvae again until 15 June, when I returned home and could see one of them in a cell constructed in the soil against the side of the glass jar. This larva pupated within the next day, and at least four adult M. floridana had emerged by 23 June.

Figures

Figs. 13–17. 13) Young Sumitrosis inaequalis larva mining in white wood aster (Eurybia divaricata) leaf; egg at upper right; 14) Mine of Sumitrosis rosea in leaf of Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus); 15) Detail of presumed Dibolia chelones mine in leaf of white turtlehead (Chelone glabra), showing squiggly strings of frass; 16) Leaf of climbing false buckwheat (Fallopia scandens) mined by four Mantura floridana larvae; 17) Mines of Monoxia angularis in Atriplex prostrata leaf.