Odontota mundula (Sanderson)

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 : 354

Odontota mundula (Sanderson)

Amphicarpaea bracteata (L.) Fernald ( Fabaceae ) is the only known host for larvae and adults of this beetle (Ford and Cavey 1985; Staines 2012). In a single patch of this plant in Pelham, Massachusetts, on 29 June 2012, I found larvae of both O. mundula and Leucanthiza amphicarpeaefoliella Clemens ( Lepidoptera : Gracillariidae ). Although both insects made blotch mines, those of the moth were only in the upper leaf surface and had the frass in dense central masses composed of small, often indistinct pellets, whereas the beetle mines were full-depth with the frass in scattered strips. In more than one instance, a beetle larva had invaded the mine of a moth larva ( Fig. 9 ). Adult beetles emerged from the mines I collected beginning on 9 July.

Figures

Figs. 7–12. 7) Presumed mine of Microrhopala rubrolineata in Brickellia betonicifolia leaf; 8) Brickellia betonicifolia leaf with skeletonizing by adult Octotoma marginicollis. The mine along the leaf margin was possibly made by a larva of this species; 9) Hog-peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata) leaf with mine of Odontota mundula overlapping mine of Leucanthiza amphicarpeaefoliella. The latter is visible as an indistinct band of frass in the lower left; 10) Mine of Odontota scapularis in groundnut leaf, with excrement-covered egg mass at right edge of photo; 11) Odontota scapularis egg mass containing pupae of parasitoid wasps; 12) Mine of Stenopodius texanus in Abutilon leaf.