Systematic Entomology - Science topic

If your method is non-destructive I don't see any reason not to proceed. Are typotypes available? If you are still nervous, you have some choices available. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

Dear Bogdan, I have accidentally reared two individuals (see some photos here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/150500174) from a Trypoxylon nest that was parasitized by a Dermastide beetle. The beetle was the host of the Bethylids, I suppose. Are you still interested in them? I would also have the wasp and Deramstide remains for potential barcoding.

Felix

Greeting everyone!

I have also a problem with identification of female Gomphus from Georgia(Caucasus). At first glance, it looks like Gomphus schneiderii, but closer examination revealed certain differences in vulval scale stucture - accordfng "Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Europe: 2nd edition" by Dijkstra and Asmus Schröter, 2020 the tips of vulval scale are pointy while the tips of my specimen are rounded. (picture attached).

Could it be intraspecific variation?

Thanks you in advance!

By taxonomic characters for example the order of Lepidoptera includes butterflies

The diptera order include flies

The hymenoptera order includes bees, wasps, hornets and ants

Coleoptera includes bettles

Also check please the following very good RG link:

Multiple, identical sequences produce polytomies in cladistic analyses, or spuriously resolved nodes in other methods. While it is true that one-gene phylogenetic hypotheses are rather minimal these days, that's what the Barcode of Life folks do every day. Remember, Bayesian inference is subjective - it is about how much you believe your results, not about how much I should!

If you prefer to share anonymously, please send me a private message.

I have about the same experience in this with Fabian. In my work ''Seasonal variation of the insect fauna in hedgerows and cereal fields in the area of Elassona, Larisa'' (in Greek), in pitfall traps with small dead mice and turtles (accidentally fallen into them), I caught hundreds of Silpha tristis (= granulata) and Aclypea undata (= Blitophaga undata), plus some Nicrophorus.

Alcohol should be avoided for killing beetles, as it makes them stiff as hell, and then very hard to spread the legs. It also makes them brittle quite quickly (a few days in alcohol are enough for this to happen), and often oily, too, as it dissolves the fat. If the beetle is oily, one or more gazoline baths will remove oil and recover the original color.

Dear colleague

I'm interested in Silphidae, Agyrtidae. Leiodidae (Catopidae, Cholevidae), Dermestidae. If yoy have any specimens of those families please contact with me.

Best regards, Sergey

Johan:

There is something wrong with your last photo, it is not possible for a larva of Sphingidae to have 14 abdominal segments. This looks like a montage of two larvae in one. It is a poorly done montage with photoshop.

Thanks Victor!

Hello again!

Did anyone have luck with obtaining galls of Aceria fraxinivora?

Best regards,

Simon

Hi Mehmet, since it is from E Anatolia, then it is P. koniae.

P. vulpes, proposed in various answers, is similar, but

- normally much less hairy (although quite hairy populations are known on Balkans)

- normally ochre to orange (unually reddish specimens may anyway occur)

- in Turkey, only known to occur in W Anatolia

P. monticola is also similar, but never so red and never so hairy and limited to Taurus rougly between Adalia and Mersin.

After you anesthetized the beetles through cold shock (using fridge at 4 degrees) or CO2 gas, put the specimen under a digital microscope along with PC (USB microscope), make the image focus and then take the pic. Now then you can measure by using the image.

It is also important to have controls so that you can compare the "health" of the ecosystem. You may also want to have baseline data for comparison. I guess this study may take time to see any significant changes, unless you create experiments that will alter the environment and reserves others for comparison.

Do you consider removing the insects from the stumps by chopping (gently) the wood? This method was very effective for me. Also, it allows to study in details the community of insects inhabiting the stump, enabling to sample all the species and all the developmental stages inhabiting dead wood at the same time (larvae of different age, pupae and adults).

During my studies I tried  covering pine stumps with various nets to catch emerging insects but this method was very ineffective.

P.S. according to my knowledge, you should find larger amounts of pupae and adults (also: emerging adults) in more decayed stumps (but not decayed too much!) and this should not be simple function of the wood age but rather of the wood decay stage. Less decayed stumps should be inhabited by young larvae in larger proportion.

You may find some inspiration here:

Kind regards!

Michał Filipiak

Bradysia is most difficult, because most species rich genus of Sciaridae and is distributed worldwide. It is probably not wise to start with that genus in Brazil, where so little is known. You might however want to get in contact with Werner Mohrig, who has best studied the Neotropical Sciaridae and already prepared a lot of unpublished descriptions and drawings.

Anita,

The fact that Nicrophorus species doesn't seem to be very specific regarding the kind of carrion the feed and breed on makes it very improbable that they would be specialized on dung beetles or another food source for the adults since that is only of a secondary importance. Now I know from literature and own observations that the adults of Nicrophorus do prey on insects and their larvae that they encounter on carrion (which I suppose is only an additional food source secondary to the carrion), I have to admit that I’ve never seen a paper which addresses on this specific topic in more detail. I guess that the mating and breeding behavior of Nicrophorinae is so interesting that no-one bothered to look at the feeding behavior of the adults. Maybe there is an interesting research topic in that … If I do come across a paper on this topic I’ll let you know.

Thank you very much Michal!

HI Jenneke, do you still have the samples? There are a few Phytomyptera species reported for South America, Rasmussen et al. (2001) reports Phytomyptera sp. as parasitoid of Eurysacca in Peru. It probably is an undescribed species.

Best.

Juan Manuel

Dear Isaac,

Please check the attached publications. May it be some help for you.

Best,

Tharindu

Isaac:

Kindly see this link:

Best

Syed

Hi Soni,

please have a look for the link below may useful for you . Good luck

Sienaa

Confirmed by Helmuth Aguirre Fernandez! This is Meteorus eurysaccovorus.

The question about what exactly is a sub-species and when do populations qualify to be separate species is a very old one. 

Current state of taxonomy of odonates is such that we still lack detailed morphological data on majority of species, which creates a huge problem. Hence, a priori I must admit many problematic groups exist where the relationships between species/sub-species remain ambiguous.

"Between Onychogomphus forcipatus And Onychogomphus lefebvrii differentiation are less than from O. lefebvrii and O. flexuosus."

 I think what you are asking here is if we cannot define a 'unit of difference' between two species then how do we know if they are not just sub-species? 

It's a complex question which cannot be answered quickly. As Kiran mentioned above sub-species are geographically isolated populations which if allowed CAN interbreed. Now this definition is not practiced for every species is it'll be impossible to test viability of off-springs between different species.

Instead taxonomists working on specific groups create their own un-written guidelines which are to be followed.

As a case study, I am here's one of my own papers which deals with a sub-species of a damselfly Aciagrion approximans krishna. This population was previously described under the species Aciagrion hisopa but in our paper we show that it actually belongs to A. approximans. If you go through the paper we compare both the sub-species of A. approximans in detail (one sub-species occurs in North-eastern India and Indo-china while the other in the Peninsular India, so these two sub-species are geographically separated perhaps with some region of 'overlap' in Eastern India).

The differences between these two 'sub-species' are much smaller than differences between other species of the same genera. 

Several prominent scientists do not consider sub-species as scientifically useful, as with molecular studies and phylogenetics the concept of subspecies is being challenged. So we still do not have full-proof answers for your questions in the literature :)

"From our experience in the literature we are convinced that the subspecies concept is the most critical and disorderly area of modern systematic theory-more so than taxonomists have realized or theo-rists have admitted."

"Differentiation in higher taxa accepted names such as Genera in various references is another problem. in one reference taxon name is Rhodischnura nursei and in another is ischnura nursei. or Anax ephippiger - Heminax ephippiger?"

This has actually nothing at all to do with species or sub-species but instead comes under the phenomenon of Taxonomic revisions. 

Both species which you mention had been previously described under a different genus but later analysis, either morphological or phylogentic revelade they belonged to some other genus hence they were transferred and two names exist for these species.

This is the reason why species which have been 'revised' are always written as,

e.g., Ischnura nursei (Morton,1907): note the author name and year in parenthesis.

Whereas a species never been revised will be written as e.g., Ischnura rubilio Selys,1876

In case of Rhodischnura/Ischnura nursei, a phylogenetic analysis done by Dijsktra et al. 2013 (see: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/syen.12035/abstract) revealed that this species belongs to the Ischnura 'clade' and hence is con-generic with other Ischnura species. This led the authors to transfer the species to the genus Ischnura and is now widely used; (e.g., see: http://www.indianodonata.org/#!/sp/379/Ischnura-nursei)

Hope this answers your question at least partly, Cheers :)

Thisis a legend that subspecies cannot overlapp and cannot exchange gene. Subspecies appear generally through isolation driven by climate oscillations or tectonic drift, or migration and settlement of an isolated population (founder effect). When climate oscillation lead to the appearance of a subspecies having only a small genertic difference, reverse of climate trend can promote new contact between the disjunct subspecies with possibility of hybridation as reproducive isolation is weak. This should be the case of Orthetrum corerulescens coerulescens (European) and Orthetrum coerulescens anceps, (from Pakistan  to Morocco) which presently overlapp and produce an outnumberable amount of intermediates structures in part of the Mediterranean and the near-whole Balkans.

The basic question for subspecies instead of species is that they cannot be defined objectively but are created according to the personnal preference of their descriptor. Some show a small genetic chnage when compared to the original population (nominotypical subspecies), other not according to known studies. There is no theoretical range span for subspecies, Some may have a minute range, other a wide range, this depends of the past geographic and genetic history of the group, linked to climate, geology and behaviour.

Have a nice 2017 year full of nice discoveries

JPB

If one sees taxonomy and systematics as different things, then my answer would be no. On the other hand, a taxonomic revision of the species living in Australia would certainly be a useful thing to have. It all depends on the aim of the work.

However, in the cases I am aware of, the Australian fauna is very deceptive and phylogenetically important. With this I mean that there are formerly unrecognized world-wide groups and relict types that have contacts to many directions. A phylogenetic analysis of these without previous (or simultanious) knowledge of the world fauna is not that great an idea.

Division of this group of flea beetles into separate subfamilies Galerucinae and Alticinae is now historical problem only. In recent classification of Chrysomelidae both groups are joined in a single subfamily (similar like Hispinae and Cassidinae are now joined in a single subfamily Cassidinae). Many genera are difficult to place in former Alticinae or Galerucinae and no single character can be use to identify both groups.

Yes I have many from Mexico

The best way to ID an specimen is to compare with a type material. If your males are not similar, you could mail some slides (including immatures and females), with the data and well protected to the Scale National collection of the Smithsonian. 

Other way would be to take good Phase contrast photos with a microscope of the females and males, and send them to an specialist.  However, voucher specimens should be a key in your research.  May a series, label them, and in that way you can mail couple of slides, all with the same collection voucher number.

The Smithsonian Scale collection is curated by Dr. Schneider (the past Curator Dr. Doug Miller retired, but he still working and visiting the collection).

Scott A. Schneider, Ph.D.

Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA-ARS

Beltsville Agricultural Research Center

Bldg. 005, Room 004

10300 Baltimore Ave., Beltsville, Maryland 20705, USA

Also you could visit : https://data.nal.usda.gov/dataset/scalenet-scale-insects-coccoidea-database

With photos is difficult to ID at species and genus level, however  try to see if your specimen follow this characteristics of Gelis.

Characteristics of Gelis include: 1. Body size (mm) (excluding antennae and ovipositor):<10mm; 2. Position of spiracle on Tergite 1 (T1 of metasoma):clearly behind the centre; 3. Shape of aerolet in forewing:other; 4. Colour of face:only black; 5. Metasoma compressed:dorsal-ventrally; 6. Size of Ocelli:small; 7. Length of antennae:shorter than body; 8. Length of ovipositor:not longer than body; 9. Wings:present; 10. Colour of wings:mostly clear but with dark patches/spots; 11. Sternaulus (on mesopleuron):short; less than 0.5x length mesopleuron; 11. Sternaulus (on mesopleuron):long; more than 0.5x length mesopleuron; 12. Shape of face in lateral view:flat or only weakly bulging; 13. Sternite on T1(viewed laterally):sternite not extending past spiracle; 14. Shape of T1(viewed laterally):evenly curved; 15. Number of teeth in mandibles:1 or 2; 16. Patterns on metasoma:same colour throughout; 17. Length of T1 vs T2:subequal in length; 18. Sculpture on mesoscutum:finely pitted, many hairs; 19. Width of T1 (viewed dorsally):gradually widening from anterior to posterior; 20. Glymma on T1:absent; 21. Sculpture on metasoma:smooth with a semi-glossy or satin appearance at least on T2; 22. Propodeum length:Propodeum very short (not reaching beyond coxal insertion).

 No, they belong to Cricula sumatrensis Jordan, 1939 (Family Saturnidae) 1 female and  4 males. C. trifenestrata has an additional subapical spot in the postmedial area between veins M1 and R5 in the forewing, not present in C. sumatrensis. It is posible that you have a new subspecies of  C. sumatrensis from India. Please check the type species of Cricula in the following links.

There is a lot of free software for morphometric analyses.  Some programs are more useful for analyzing size measurements, others for shape. Some are point-and-click programs, others are packages for morphometrics that run in R; R gives you much greater flexibility and it is far easier to repeat the same kind of analysis many times, as well as to keep a complete record of what you did, but it does take time to learn enough about R before it is easy to use. I have written a general overview of free software for geometric morphometrics, but it is seriously outdated in the sections on doing morphometrics in R (it can be downloaded from ResearchGate). If you want to use measurements of size instead, you could do your analyses in R anyway, but as mentioned above, PAST is a reasonable alternative. It does the standard analyses and it is not that difficult to learn. If you plan to analyze shape, I would strongly recommend doing your analyses in R because the most comprehensive program for shape analysis is the R package geomorph. It has an excellent manual and a very complete Users Guide. It is also excellent for graphics. The first step in any morphometric analysis is collecting the data, and the tps program, tpsDig remains my favorite for that (it is for collecting data from photographs by clicking on landmarks and outlining curves). I've digitizing several thousand photographs using it and although I've experimented with other programs I have not found one as easy to use or as complete. That one you can get at www.life.bio.sunysb.edu/morph/. That is the Stony Brook morphometrics website and it has links to many programs (just follow the link to software). 

Hi Jenneke

I'm a taxonomist specialized in Ichneumonidae. I'm not familiar with Banchinae from South America, but I can compare it with the so far 5 species described in that genus and occuring in the area.

also, see my answers for the same question on researchgate placed on 26October2016.

Hello Jose:

For identification at species level you should contact  a specialist like Yves Alarie yalarie@nickel.laurentian.ca in Canada. He is doing the revision of Gyretes spp. (Coleoptera: Gyrinidae)

Regards,

Luis Miguel

For biological data, values of Shannon’s diversity index range generally from 1.5 (low species richness and evenness) to 3.5 (high species evenness and richness).

See

Herbert et al.  Field Guide to Stink Bugs of Agricultural Importance in the United States and

Paiero et al. 2013- Stink bugs of Ontario (Can Journ Arthropod Identif),

both free on the Internet.

I read carefully the papers on Amara pulpani (by W.Paill) and pulpani + makolskii (By Mueller -Kroehling.and i'm sure that the morphological characters they found are clear and acceptable. Nevertheless, many authors are doubtful about the existence of a three species communis group. The pulpani-makolskii existence poses a fundamental question: has somebody found the two/three forms syntopic, i. e. co-existing in the same habitat or pitfall trap? I don't know. But I know that also in Carabid species some ecomorphotypes (ecological forms, ecotypes) are known, even if not so well studied. For example, I collected a population of Trechus quadristriatus in a doline of the Karst near Trieste, where all specimens where brachypterous. This population was highly isolated from all other living in the same area. Dr. Deb Boer in the Netherlands found that in more wet habitats Pterostichus oblongopunctatus had a trychobothrium more on each elytra, and he distinguished between "High and low pitters". In my lab 40 years ago I reared Carabus creutzeri and were able to produce blue/black forms at higher temperatures (20°C or more) and copper brilliant specimens at lower temperatures (research interrupted because of money shortage...).

To solve the question, I suggest that people interested in it try to find coexisting populations of the two forms or to begin with genetic analyses.

Whatever anybody thinks, the question of those forms or species is of great importance for a deeper insight in the problems of carabid adaptation and speciation processes.

Anopheles gambiae senso lato is a group of sibling species which are closely similar morphologically. they are eight members belong to anopheles gambiae senso lato (Anopheles gambiae s.l.).  Anopheles gambiae senso stricto is one among the 8 members of An.gambiae s.l.

Dear Taylan,

Thanks for your message.

It is really helpfull.

Regards,

José Zanuncio

Sorry, I cannot.

I am not formally a teacher now, but have done some teaching as well in school as in university or in the frames of e.g. DEST, so must have developed some opinion. My suggestion is: present to students in detail this classification which in your opinion best reflects the systematic relationships (this you can best explain and justify), but emphatically, repeatedly accentuate that no classification is a Holy Scripture, that there are many variants differing in basic philosophy (e.g. cladistic and synthetic) or criteria (e.g. morphology vs. molecules), that systematics is a living and evolving branch of science and so its results are being constantly improved and modified, &c.!

Hello,

first, they are not nymphs, i saw one, on the panel A (on the right) where the genital aperuture is visible, so it can not be a nymph. then for the identification of engorged specimens i can say that morphogical features is impossible to reveal and other ways are proposed to identify ticks as molecular identification (12S or other), MALDI Tof and other methods.

best regards

Dear Wafaa, dear Djillali: But is it true, that  there are no Travuniidae at all in Southamerica ? That is my doubt.

All European Geometridae you can also look up on:

There are a lot of turkish species included, but maybe not all of them. You will find no key, but a lot of descriptions, pictures, mostly the Original description, caterpillars, pupae, eggs and so on!

I use this webside nearly every day!

Best wishes

Rudolf Ritt

Hi,

This is not a species of Cotesia as Cotesia spp. does not have areolet (closed cell) in the fore wing. This could be a Venanus sp. as there is only one microgastrine parasitoid is reported so far from this host. The images of propodeum and metasoma (in dorsal view) helps to identify it into generic level.

It is definitely not a myriapod but an insect. I would say it is a lepidopteran. Last instar caterpillars normally wander around to find a suitable place to pupate. 

Dear Fredrick,

I think the most resemble insect to your photo is the numph of Abisares viridpennis. Please see the attached photo. In fact, I could not know why your photo is brown and not green?

 I agree with Mehmet that its speculative that, tell something about its species  via only a photo..

Regards,

Wafaa

Family Coreidae

Dear Colleague,

identification of insect to species level is not an easy task. it requires lot of skills, experience, understanding and (often) anatomical work to dissect and study internal organs. 

Number of characters used for identification of a species may reach 20-30. To make sure your examination is correct, you have to have specimen on your hands / under the microscope. 

Low quality & resolution / single position (view angle) photographs are useless for identification of insects.

Even common and widespread species usually have twin-species only possible to recognize with direct contact.

As an expert with over 25 years of experience in insect taxonomy, I would never ever put my name (as det.) under any of the photographs like those you have provided.

Hi, I confirm. It is a grap of eggs of Horse flies. Their arrive white and rapidly turn to brown and dark after some hours. You can see animal in action and comparison between white and black eggs on this nice images: https://1000-pattes.blogspot.fr/2010/08/le-temps-dun-taon.html. Bravo to Mr Rasnitsyn

Thank you very much Mr Constantino. Will surely got through it and get back to you if i have doubts. By any chance is there an English version on the same? Appreciate your help.

Kind Regards

Roshan

 Dear Jindřich,

These mites look like larvae of a species of Trombidioidea. It is hard to tell from your photos. Kosta Mumcouglu has recently published on parasitic mites on Diptera and may be able to help further. http://www.entomology.org.il/sites/default/files/pdfs/Mumcuoglu.pdf

Cheers,

Matt

Allright, thank you. I found out that it is on the Red List of Kazakhstan which surprised me. Still can not find any relevant info about KG though. Do you know any russian-written papers?

Dear Nawab Ali,

it seems to be the Cereal leaf beetle (Oulema melanopus L.) . You can get more information about this insect on http://www.pflanzenkrankheiten.ch/de/schaedlinge/ackerbau/getreidehaehnchen-ackerbau

Dear Dammini

Could be A. craccivora based on the length of the Cauda and Cornicle (Cornicles longer than Cauda). Please check on this link i found it could be useful to a limited extent.

http://ucanr.edu/sites/CottonIPM/files/166555.pdf 

Regards,

Subramanian

Libellulidae. Antennae diferents in Gomphidae.

Thanks a lot Dear Rudolf! Any idea what species it could be?

Gy

That's similar genus Holochlora to me.

Hi Attila.

As I've very few knowledge about Pompilidae I forwarded your question to Raymond Wahis. The short answer is that P.lateritius Mocsary 1879 (nec Taschenberg, 1880) is a synonym of Arachnotheutes rufithorax (Costa, 1887). The full, detailed and translated answer is in the attached file.

Raymond would be very pleased to know why you need these data. What can I forward back to him?

Dear Carly. Samples in ethanol can't be stored for a long time, because it tends to deteriorate. Besides, insect samples can't be morphologically analyzed ahead. I suggest stocking dry with silica gel at 20*C for optimal preservation of DNA. I don't know about benzene. But, chemical components in the sample, usually inhibit PCR. Good luck ;)

Then, How about Hymenopterans? We have an unpublished data of honey bees ranging 40,000 / 10 meter square. Is it the correct estimate if converted to population per hectare or so? Pl. see a part of the tree with many number of honey combs with bees.... More than 20 such combs are found during summer season in a single tree in Southern Eastern Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India. 

Hello my friend, hope you have a nice day.

In my opinion and experience the photos for this type of measurements is necessary that you have a standarization of make each photo. 1) your insects correctly mounted. 2) Something very important is that you take the photos at the same height from the insect (i.e. using a tripod), 3) you need a legible metric scale near to the specimen (to use as reference in the measurement software), and 4) preferably with the use of macrophoto  of reflex camera with a macro objective or helped with a stereoscopic microscope (if you have a compact camera the microscope is the best option). 

For measurements there are free access programs that serve to you make morphometry, for example MorphoJ (I have used with good results) which is very easy and intuitive to use, and have the great advantage of you could export all of your measured data to a *.xls file.

Here is the link attached, if you want to use this program.

I hope this information will be useful.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Best regards

Cristian Martínez

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Rediscovery?????

This word is really ridiculous for scientific work

about 2 year ago and also yesteryear i found both male and female of this species from 3 separate area from Iran.

my unpublished paper nipped in the bud and with my idea this manner is not scientific moral.

in my opinion C. persicum clearly separated species and Lohman, 1993 described a valid taxon.  

Over here there are manyOrthoptera and numerous keys. For most there are no keys, Many don't even have names, let alone keys.

Orthoptera is a bit large a goup to aim at. If you could narrow your scope to genus, or tribe, or subfamily, or even family, I may perhaps have an answer for you.