Culicoides (Haematomyidium) kettlei Breidenbaugh and Mullens

Phillips, Robert A., 2022, Culicoides Latreille and Leptoconops Skuse biting midges of the southwestern United States with emphasis on the Canyonlands of southeastern Utah (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), Insecta Mundi 2022 (907), pp. 1-214 : 67-68

Culicoides (Haematomyidium) kettlei Breidenbaugh and Mullens

( Fig. 80 , 133, 187, 188)

Culicoides (Haematomyidium) kettlei Breidenbaugh and Mullens, 1999b: 150 (egg, larva, pupa, adult female; male genitalia; fig. egg, larval head, caudal segment, mouthparts, pupal respiratory trumpet, operculum, caudal segment, chaetotaxy, female eyes, antenna, palpus, legs, wing, spermathecae, male genitalia; California).

Diagnosis. ( Tables 14, 15) Brown; r 2 dark; distal pale spot in r 3 irregular, crude C- or mushroom-shaped, sometimes extending faintly along anterior wing margin into apex of cell to form an arch; two irregular pale spots in m 1; distal pale spots in m 2, cua 1, anal cell; M 1 and M 2 without pale spots; one pale spot in distal half of anal cell, not reaching wing margin; male tergite 9 apicolateral processes as long as ~0.4 the distance between them; ventral apodeme of gonocoxite with two well-developed widely divergent processes, footlike; aedeagus simple, median process tapering to blunt minutely serrate tip, aedeagal ratio ~0.6; parameres separate, with distinct bulbous submedian lobe smaller than width of paramere, and with subapical fringe of spines. (Male genitalia indistinguishable from that of C. stellifer .)

Distribution. California, Baja California.

Larval ecology and adult behavior. Breidenbaugh and Mullens (1999a) collected adults with emergence traps from soil margins of an ephemeral creek at 300–350 m elevation in San Bernardino County, California. They (1999b) also report collections of C. kettlei females with CO 2 -baited traps, and Mullens and Dada (1992a, as “ Culicoides n. sp. near lahillei ”) collected an unfed female from a bighorn sheep, which, along with its SCo pattern reduced to only the proximal flagellomeres, strongly suggests it is mammalophilic.

Life cycle. Laboratory studies by Breidenbaugh and Mullens (1999b) found that wild-caught C. kettlei laid an average of 74 eggs and the larvae fed on bacterial-feeding Pelodera nematodes and started pupating 26 d after egg hatch at 21 °C.

Symbionts. Mullens et al. (1997b) experimented with the potential biocontrol parasitic nematode, Heleidomermis magnapapula in the laboratory and found it readily penetrated but did not develop or emerge from C. kettlei (as “ C. n. sp. near lahillei [Iches]”) larvae, which continued to develop to adults with no sign of the nematode.

Remarks. Willis Wirth referred to this species as new species number 120 ( Breidenbaugh and Mullens 1999b).

Culicoides kettlei has considerable wing pattern variation (Fig. 133, 187, 188) and is often similar to C. stellifer (Fig. 134, 135, 189); and their quantitative characters ( Table 14), leg-banding ( Table 15), and genitalia are nearly identical. Other than for the number of distal pale spots in m 1 and the anal cell, I could find no consistent ways to distinguish adult C. kettlei from C. stellifer . In addition, other than the lack of hypostomal teeth on C. kettlei , I could find no distinct differences between the larval and pupal descriptions of C. kettlei in Breidenbaugh and Mullens (1999b) and those of C. stellifer in Blanton and Wirth (1979) and Murphree and Mullen (1991). See C. stellifer remarks.

Figures

Figures 79–80. Male genitalia of Culicoides, ventral view, basal arms of aedeagus (Aa), submedian lobe on paramere (Pml), ventral apodeme of gonocoxite (Gcva), distal spines of paramere (Pds). 79) C. mohave, apex of aedeagus circled (San Bernardino County, CA [FSCA]). 80) C. kettlei (Riverside County, CA [BM]).