Atrichopogon (Meloehelea) downesi Wirth, 1980

William L. Grogan, Jr., Hribar, Lawrence J., Murphree, C. Steven & Cilek, James E., 2010, New records of biting and predaceous midges from Florida, including species new to the fauna of the United States (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), Insecta Mundi 2010 (147), pp. 1-59 : 8

Atrichopogon (Meloehelea) downesi Wirth

Atrichopogon (Meloehelea) downesi Wirth, 1980: 129 (West Virginia); Borkent and Grogan 2009: 6 (in Nearctic catalog; distribution).

Discussion. Females in the subgenus Meloehelea Wirth of Atrichopogon are ectoparasites of blister beetles ( Coleoptera : Meloidae ) and other closely related beetle families (Wirth 1980). However, Wilkening et al. (1985) noted that “…undescribed species probably occur in Florida. Florida material in this subgenus has not been studied and we have no records.” Borkent and Grogan (2009) listed six species in the subgenus Meloehelea in North America north of Mexico, including A. (M.) ladislavi Tóthová that was recently described from Ontario, Canada ( Tóthová et al. 2009). The most common and widespread species of Meloehelea in North America, A. (M.) downesi Wirth , ranges from Minnesota to Nova Scotia, south to North Carolina and Tennessee ( Borkent and Grogan 2009).

We discovered a female from Liberty Co., Florida in the FSCA that we determined as A. (M.) downesi in Wirth’s (1980) key as well as the updated key to Holarctic species in the subgenus Meloehelea by Tóthová et al. (2009). This Florida specimen is virtually identical with four female paratypes of A. downesi from Virginia and Maryland as well as three other females from Wicomico Co., Maryland and a female from Hocking Co., Ohio (WLGC). This is the first Florida record of this species, and it suggests that it may be more widely distributed in the southeastern United States than previous records indicate.

New records. Liberty Co., Torreya St. Park, 20-V-1966, H. V. Weems, 1 female (FSCA). New Florida state record.