Dasymutilla Ashmead, 1899

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 : 4-5

Genus Dasymutilla Ashmead

Mutilla subg. Ephuta Say, 1836 (in part). Boston J. Nat. Hist. 1:297.

Mutilla subg. Sphaeropthalma Blake, 1871 (in part). Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. 3:232.

Sphaerophthalma [sic.] Blake, 1886. Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. 13:179.

Dasymutilla Ashmead, 1899 . N. Y. Ent. Soc., Jour. 7:57.

Bruesia Ashmead, 1903 . Can. Ent. 35:306.

Pycnomutilla Ashmead, 1904 . Can. Ent. 36:8.

Type-species: Mutilla (Sphaeropthalma) gorgon Blake.

The first described species of Dasymutilla was D. occidentalis , which was described as Mutilla occidentalis by Linnaeus in his tenth edition of Systema Naturae. An approximation of the current delimitation of the genus was Say’s (1836) Ephuta (as a subgenus of Mutilla ). It included three species: E. erythrina (Say) , E. gibbosa (Say) , and E. scrupea (Say) . Ashmead (1899) later designated E. scrupea as the type species of Ephuta , and the first two were later moved to Dasymutilla .

The next approximation of the genus was Blake’s (1871) Sphaeropthalma (as a subgenus of Mutilla ). He later elevated it to generic rank, and included 84 species ( Blake 1886). Ashmead (1899) chose the first species on the list, S. scaeva (Blake) , when he designated a type for Sphaeropthalma . Unfortunately, that species was not congeneric with most of the other species included on Blake’s list. Because the designation of types by Ashmead for both Ephuta and Sphaeropthalma was made correctly according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, those genera are valid and not synonymous with Dasymutilla .

Ashmead (1899) proposed the generic name Dasymutilla with Mutilla (Sphaeropthalma) gorgon Blake as the type. His definition of the genus is as follows:

“Abdomen with the first segment petiolate or petioliform, never broadly sessile with the second, but much narrowed at the apex, and usually with a constriction or furrow between it and the second; eyes rounded or hemispherical, very prominent and highly polished, not faceted, or the facets very indistinctly defined, as in the tribe Photopsidini ; males winged; front wings with two cubital cells; body usually very hairy or pubescent; second abdominal segment of male usually black or unicolorous, not spotted with red or yellow; second abdominal segment of female usually black or the derma not spotted, although the segment is sometimes spot- ted with two or more pubescent spots.”

This description of the genus applied mainly to those species clothed with long, dense setae. Mickel (1928) expanded his description of the genus as follows:

“Eyes round, prominent, almost hemispherical in shape, polished, the facets usually very indistinct but not necessarily so; first abdominal segment either distinctly petiolate, subpetiolate, or subsessile, but never completely sessile with the second, a distinct constriction present at the junction of these two segments; anterior wings of the male with cells 1 st R 1 + R, and R 5 present, cell R 4 either indistinct or completely absent; females with a distinct pygidial area; body either clothed with long dense pubescence, sparsely pubescent or almost bare; pubescence of the body composed entirely of simple hairs; plumose hairs never present.”

It is very likely that Traumatomutilla André (1901) will eventually be synonymized with Dasymutilla . André’s (1903) description of Traumatomutilla is nearly identical to the above descriptions of Dasymutilla . André ended his description of the female by saying (translated from French): “The most frequent ornamentation of tergum II is four distinct, shining spots, blood-red or reddish yellow in color.” Many Dasymutilla females do not have any “spots” or maculae, while for those that do have maculae, the spots are yellow or orange. André described the male as having three cubital cells, while Ashmead (1899) described the male as having two cubital cells. There are, however, many males of Traumatomutilla with two rather than three cubital cells. More often the males of Traumatomutilla differ in setal coloration from males of Dasymutilla ; their setae are black except for silver on the pronotum, propodeum and transverse bands on the metasoma, especially on the anterior margin of the second segment, which is not as wide medially as it is laterally.

If one has specimens that appear to be Dasymutilla that cannot be identified using the keys in this manuscript, especially specimens from Central or South America, then they might try comparison with Traumatomutilla specimens. There is no key to the genus Traumatomutilla , although there are some keys available for specific species-groups within the genus ( Casal 1969, Mickel 1952).