Culicoides (Culicoides) luteovenus Root and Hoffman

Huerta, Rodríguez, Ana M., William L. Grogan, Jr. & Ibáñez-Bernal, Sergio, 2012, New records of biting midges of the genus Culicoides Latreille from Mexico (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), Insecta Mundi 2012 (211), pp. 1-20 : 7

Culicoides (Culicoides) luteovenus Root and Hoffman

Culicoides luteovenus Root and Hoffman, 1937: 156 ( Mexico, Distrito Federal); Vargas 1945: 44 ( Mexico, Oaxaca) ; Macfie 1948: 72 ( Mexico, Chiapas) ; Wirth 1952a: 175 ( USA, California records, listed from Utah and Washington) ; Wirth 1955b: 110 ( Guatemala; feeding on horses).

Culicoides (Culicoides) luteovenus: Wirth and Blanton 1956: 214 .

Culicoides (Anilomyia) luteovenus: Vargas 1960: 37 (in list of species in new subgenus Anilomyia ).

Discussion. This Neotropical species is currently known from southern Mexico south to Panama ( Borkent and Spinelli 2000). Wirth (1952a) recorded C. luteovenus in the USA from several localities in California and also listed it from Utah and Washington. Subsequently, Wirth (1965) listed these USA records in the Nearctic Diptera catalog, as did Borkent and Spinelli (2007) in their Neotropical catalog. However, in Wirth’s (1974) catalog south of the United States, C. luteovenus was not listed from the USA, and it was not included in the Nearctic Wing Atlas ( Wirth et al. 1985) or in the recent Nearctic catalog by Borkent and Grogan (2009). Therefore, it is now apparent that earlier records of C. luteovenus from the USA probably referred to another species. This species was previously known in Mexico from Chiapas, Distrito Federal and Oaxaca ( Root and Hoffman 1937, Macfie 1948, Vargas 1945); we provide the first records from Veracruz.

New records. Veracruz, Ayahualulco, Apanteopan, 12 May 2008, Entomological brigade JS IV, CDC trap, 2 females ; same data except 18 May 2009, 1 female .