Culicoides ( Drymodesmyia ) ryckmani Wirth and Hubert

Culicoides ( Drymodesmyia) ryckmani Wirth and Hubert View in CoL

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

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

Culicoides ( Drymodesmyia) ryckmani: Wirth 1965: 131 View in CoL (placement in subgenus Drymodesmyia View in CoL ). 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 View in CoL , 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) .