Dasymutilla cardinalis Mickel

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 : 38

Dasymutilla cardinalis Mickel

Dasymutilla cardinalis Mickel, 1937 . Rev. Ent. Rio 7:188. Holotype female, Jalappa , Mexico (Deppe) (Klug collection, No. 6653) [ZMHB]; paratype female, Mexico (Spinola Collection, No. 8.1) [MRSN] (examined).

Diagnosis of Female. This species is recognized by having the mesosoma as broad as long, the apices of the middle and hind femora are slightly squared and sulcate, and by having the dorsum of the head, mesosoma, and a broad band on tergum II clothed with bright red setae, while the dorsum of the metasoma, from the apical margin of tergum II, is clothed entirely with black setae. This species has the integument entirely black, without maculae. Also, the head is distinctly narrower than the mesosoma, the antennal scrobe is strongly carinate dorsally, the gena is carinate, the mesosoma lacks a scutellar scale, sternum II is merely punctate, not at all scabrous, and the pygidium is longitudinally rugose.

Male. Unknown.

Distribution. Mexico.

Remarks. This species is known only from the two female types. Only the paratype specimen has been examined, and the mesosoma of that specimen is crushed, which makes observation of the scutellar scale (or lack thereof) difficult. As in D. mutata , the apices of the middle and hind femora are only slightly squared and sulcate, and one should proceed in the key to couplet #2 rather than couplet #96.