Ululodes, Smith, 1900

Jones, Joshua R., Johnson, Samantha & Jensen, Jeremy B., 2024, A new species of Ululodes owlfly (Ascalaphidae: Ululodinae) from Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona, American Museum Novitates 2024 (4010), pp. 1-32 : 17-18

KNOWLEDGE OF ULULODES OWLFLIES AND CAVE CREEK CANYON

A detailed ecology for most species of owlflies is essentially unknown. In fact, our biological knowledge of owlflies as a group is largely a set of generalizations assumed for all members based on focused studies of a mere handful of species, contrasted with an absence of contrary data—due to a lack of formal investigations or published observations—to suggest deviations from these null models. At present, most of our information thus is taxonomic and its quality has been, in several cases, questionable. But this situation is changing.

This paucity of ecological information and questionable nature of taxonomic information have been true for the Nearctic fauna, which includes many species that are only very poorly known. In stark contrast, however, the fauna also includes a small handful of the most biologically well-understood owlflies. In particular, Ululodes mexicanus (McLachlan) is perhaps the most comprehensively characterized of all owlfly species, both morphologically and ecologically, due to important works by Henry in the 1970s, in which he described in great detail the anatomy of all life stages, and characterized the life cycle and various other ecological attributes of the same ( Henry, 1972, 1976, 1977). Nevertheless, for several decades now, the taxonomic status of U. mexicanus has been somewhat in doubt, due to nearly coincident but unpublished revisionary work on the Nearctic owlflies by Shetlar (1977), who did not recognize the species as valid, and the subsequent species catalog of North American Neuropterida of Penny et al. (1997), who, without consulting representative material, accepted and validated Shetlar’s conclusions. Our view here, based on our ongoing studies of U.S. species, is that U. mexicanus is, in fact, an independent and valid species (table 1) well distributed in the United States.

Fieldwork by Henry was carried out at SWRS, where he spent three summers during his doctoral program. Ululodes mexicanus frequents this area, along with Ascaloptynx juvenilis (McLachlan) (determined as such by Jones, 2014) and, at lower elevations near the mouth of Cave Creek Canyon, Ululodes bicolor (Banks) . As with U. mexicanus , the canyon and environs where it occurs are exceptionally well researched and characterized, due to the presence of the field station and the considerable influx of professional and avocational scholars it has attracted annually from all over the world since its establishment by the American Museum of Natural History in the 1950s. Many visiting researchers regularly run light sheets to attract nocturnal, photophilic arthropods—a generally effective method for attracting at least some Ululodes spp. and other Western Hemisphere owlflies—all summer long. Thus, it is no small surprise to discover a new species of Ululodes owlfly occurring in the same areas where so many others, including Henry, have meticulously collected for nearly three-quarters of a century.

Of U.S. Ululodes species, U. chiricahuensis is morphologically most similar to U. mexicanus and U. nigripes . Ululodes mexicanus is widespread throughout the western United States, with records as far north as Oregon ( Lyons and Ross, 2012), south and east through California, Nevada, and Utah, and eastward across Arizona; its easternmost reach is southwestern New Mexico. Ululodes nigripes is described from western Texas. Its westernmost reach is recorded to southeastern New Mexico, though it may extend slightly further west, possibly into central New Mexico, where it may even enter into narrow sympatry with U. mexicanus .

Ululodes mexicanus is widespread throughout the Chiricahuas (fig. 6) and is frequently collected in Cave Creek Canyon (figs. 7–10). Until this study, it was thought to be the only species of Ululodes occurring at SWRS. We now know that both U. bicolor and U. chiricahuensis also occur in various parts of the drainage.