Dasymutilla magna (Cresson)

MANLEY, DONALD G. & PITTS, JAMES P., 2007, Tropical and Subtropical Velvet Ants of the Genus Dasymutilla Ashmead (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae) with Descriptions of 45 New Species, Zootaxa 1487 (1), pp. 1-128 : 65

Dasymutilla magna (Cresson)

Mutilla magna Cresson, 1865b . Proc. Ent. Soc. Phil. 4:385. Holotype female, Cape St. Lucas, Lower California (No. 1863) [ANSP] (examined). Male description: Mickel (1928:232).

Diagnosis of Female (Plate C6A). This species can be differentiated from others by a unique combination of characters. The female has both the antennal scrobe and gena strongly carinate. The mesosoma is longer than broad, and with a small, though conspicuous, scutellar scale. The integument is entirely black. The head, mesosoma, and metasoma are concolorous, clothed with long shaggy yellow setae, including the legs. The setal coloration on the metasoma varies and some specimens from Sinaloa have black setae medially on terga II to IV, but are otherwise identical.

Diagnosis of Male (Plate C6B). This species can be differentiated from others by a unique combination of characters. The male has the antennal scrobe weakly carinate. It has a median pit on sternum II and an apical fringe of setae on the pygidium. The integument is entirely black. As in the female, the head, mesosoma, and metasoma are predominantly concolorous, clothed with yellow setae. Only the apical fringe, or sometimes the apical half, of tergum II is yellow.

Distribution. USA (Arizona, California); Mexico (Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora).

Remarks. This species is known from both sexes and is easily identified in both. It is not a particularly common species. Several dozen specimens of each sex have been examined, including the specimen from which Mickel (1928) described the male.