InsectNet forum

Any IDs would be appreciated! Click on image for larger view.

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#13. What's with the head? What am I looking at?



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These are now with Bob at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Hi Chuck,

Perhaps a visit to your nearby Cornell University will render some identifications. If you could spend one or two afternoons looking through their systemic identified Cerambycid holdings you could match up some of these to what they may have. They may even have your specimens somewhat separated out by region which will cut down time in searches. For example, they may have a cabinet or two just devoted to material from the South Pacific. Or, they may put small color coded dots in the upper right hand corner of the unit trays to indicate region.

The color coded dots "idea" came into play in the late 1980s/early 1990s when some of the larger institutions began integrating their numerous private holdings which for a long time were kept separate from each other. This way instead of a researcher looking through several different collections for a particular species or genus he would only have to go to perhaps one cabinet and have all of the holdings from several collections compressed into one place for ease of finding what was specifically needed.

At least, this is the approach the museum I worked at for 8 years took. Your specimens all appear to be on the small side and they come from a region that most enthusiasts will have no knowledge of. Enthusiasts, tend to be most familiar with what they can collect (personally) or with what they can get through dealers.

Of course, dealers only tend to sell showy material and Malaysia and Indonesia (for example) are what one finds mostly on the market. Several other places that once had offerings have dried up over the years.

Taking note of your last sentence after all of the pictures tells me that they are in good hands and you should simply ask Bob if he has had any chance to identify them.
Carnegie has some strengths among their collection although, I am uncertain if their holdings of South Pacific material are very good or even identified.

I would also point out that the Bishop Museum (Hawaii) along with one or two of the major Australian museums and of course the British Museum all have what is arguably the best identified collections of material from the South Pacific region !

Greetings!

I'm going to accept this as a poke and a challenge, as I should have done this months ago!! The bark beetle work this year has consumed all of my time - one of the worst years ever - but that excuse is getting old for anyone that knows me. Give me a day or two and I'll get you as many names as I can...

Thank you for your patience, Chuck...

Cheers! Bandrow

The last one without a doubt is Leptorhabdium pictum - an eastern U.S. species in the Lepturinae, and feeds in dead, rotting wood. So, this one is clearly mislabeled - knocking off the low-hanging fruit first!

The second piece of fruit is #1 - this is a species of Anthribidae - the fungus weevils. The length of antennae relative to body length in some tropical species rival the Cerambycidae, and these are often sold on commercial sites as cerambycids. The antennae differ in length between the sexes like in many long-horned beetles as well.

bandrow wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2023 12:38 am The last one without a doubt is Leptorhabdium pictum - an eastern U.S. species in the Lepturinae, and feeds in dead, rotting wood. So, this one is clearly mislabeled - knocking off the low-hanging fruit first!

Thanks Bob!

Actually, I owed you the photos for ID, so figured I'd just post them here for everyone.

I assure you the label on the Leptorhabdium pictum is correct.

Even Hawai'i aside, the Pacific is loaded with US and Asian invasives, largely thanks to WW2. US-origin war materiel flooded into Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and particularly Solomon Islands. And of course a lot of this stuff was transshipped, so (for example) a US east coast invasive in a box would quite commonly go through the Panama Canal, to Hawai'i, then to Vanuatu and finally reach Solomon Islands.

The best known invasive for those who've suffered in Solomon Islands is the horrible little stinging pissant AKA Electric ant Wasmannia auropunctata. I was told it came in during WW2. Maybe, maybe not. It is originally from Central and South America. Hate these things, I've been stung thousands of times by them. Hate them.

I have two very small Ascalapha odorata from Solomon Islands. Well before WW2 Papilio aegeus had become established in Solomon Islands. Fiji's invasives I'm no very familiar with, but I'm not surprised that a beetle from NE USA was found in Fiji, since Fiji was a transshipment location for war-bound US goods.

Thanks and looking forward to more IDs!

Chuck wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2023 3:19 pm Well before WW2 Papilio aegeus had become established in Solomon Islands.

Yes, and it was named oberon by Grose-Smith in 1897 ... well before even WW1, although it only occurs on Santa Cruz. Presumably it either never reached the main islands, or it was unable to compete.

Adam.

Greetings,

Here are some more names, at least to the genus level. Images 2, 3, 12 and 13 are species in the genus Glenea sensu latu. This genus is one of the largest in the Cerambycidae, probably exceeding 500 or more species, primarily distributed in SE Asia and the greater Indo-Australian region, with a few in Africa. It has been broken into a number of genera recently. I'll see if I can narrow these down to at least a species-group.

More soon...
Bandrow

Howdy,

Numbers 4, 10 and 11 are in another huge genus, Tmesisternus. Numbers 6, 8 and 9 are in yet another big genus (although getting smaller in numbers than the two previous), Acalolepta. Number 7 is in the genus Cylindrepomus. Number 5 is a mystery to me - I'll have to dig more on that one.

That's really interesting to learn that the Leptorhabdium is a legitimate Fiji record - thanks for verifying that. When we think of "invasive species" we tend to think of things coming into the U.S., but it's easy to forget that it's a two-way street and we export as many species as come in. As for long-horned beetles, Neandra brunnea and Neoclytus acuminatus have both been introduced from the U.S. into Europe and are spreading there.

I'll post species-level dets on these if and when I get them...

Happy Holidays to everyone!!
Bandrow

Hi Again,

Success in getting a species name on number 2 - Glenea (Glenea) aluensis Gahan 1897...

Cheers!
Bandrow

Hi Chuck,

I'm pretty confident that #7 is Cylindrepomus grammicus Pascoe, 1860. It is the only species currently recorded from the Solomons and matches nicely images of this species on the Cerambycidae Catalog website: http://bezbycids.com/byciddb/wdetails.asp?id=30743&w=o

Cheers!
Bandrow

Thanks Bandrow! I'd been on another cerambycid site before but wasn't aware of bezbycids.com.

#13 is a real oddity with the head protruded like that.

The best address for identifications of Cerambycidae is

https://www.cerambycoidea.com/

Create an acount (it's free, takes less than 30 seconds), and post your pictures. They will be seen by a community of Cerambycidae enthousiasts and specialists, amateurs and professionals.