Unique Phytocoris from Arizona

Phytocoris are often easily identified to genus but with hundreds of species, they're rarely identified beyond that. I'm creating this post to recognize and group together similar species of Phytocoris (most of which are unidentified) that have been observed in Arizona, with the goal of maybe eventually being able to work them out.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=research%2Cneeds_id&taxon_id=178498&place_id=40

Unidentified Phytocoris

gray body, uniformly yellowish wings


Image credit (left to right): berkshirenaturalist, finatic, sambiology
Additional observations: psyllidhipster, finatic
*All observations may be the same individual
*gets to couplet 8 in Stonedahl's key (requires ventral to continue)

possibly P. fuscipennis


Image credit (left to right): berkshirenaturalist, finatic
*All observations may be the same individual

pale and unusually plain


Image credit: sambiology

maybe P. interspersus group near P. navajo


Image credit: sambiology

mottled pale and dark


Image credit (left to right): psyllidhipster, finatic

mottled dark, darkest along clavus, pale triangles near cuneus, pronotum with dark wavy border


Image credit (left to right): berkshirenaturalist, finatic, finatic, finatic
Appears to be the same as Salvador Vitanza's bugguide submission (high quality photos)

similar to previous group but more uniformly brown


Image credit (left to right): silversea_starsong, muir

brown hopeless group 1


Image credit (left to right): treegrow, berkshirenaturalist, finatic, psyllidhipster, finatic
Additional observations: matthew_salkiewicz, matthew_salkiewicz

brown hopeless group 2


Image credit: berkshirenaturalist

I tried, but probably also hopeless group 3


Image credit: berkshirenaturalist

Identified Phytocoris

Phytocoris fuscipennis


Image credit: psyllidhipster
Additional observations: silversea_starsong (same individual as pictured)

Phytocoris ramosus


Image credit: berkshirenaturalist
Additional observations: jaykeller, finatic, finatic, finatic, alex_bairstow, finatic

Phytocoris roseotinctus


Image credit: jaykeller
Additional observations: berkshirenaturalist, muir, psyllidhipster, treegrow, silversea_starsong, finatic

Phytocoris squamosus


Image credit: finatic
Additional observations: jaykeller, finatic
*All observations may be the same individual

Phytocoris vanduzeei


Image credit: treegrow
Additional observations: psyllidhipster, finatic, finatic


Stonedahl's keys sometimes rely on genitalia, which are essentially dead ends for photographed bugs, but sometimes it doesn't, and in those cases some of the more distinctive Phytocoris may be identifiable. A ventral view of the abdomen wouldn't hurt for some of the plainer brown specimens, though.
Posted on 28 de fevereiro de 2018, 12:18 AM by psyllidhipster psyllidhipster

Comentários

Are keys for phytocoris reasonably complete? I have some regular visitors which seem like they should be possible to identify to species if I had a good key, plus maybe some sample preparation guidelines.

Publicado por glmory cerca de 6 anos antes

Found the paper you mentioned. Sure looks like the group is well enough studied to be able to identify common species with sufficient time put in. With so many species in the genus, I imagine keying one out with a specimen would be quite a chore but probably not notably worse than my attempts to key out other insects.

http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/925

Publicado por glmory cerca de 6 anos antes

A challenge definitely with 200 species, but even if we can only key them out to species groups (of which there are 20) it may be possible to go through the descriptions of the species in that group and find a match. Some of the key characters rely on genitalia though, which would require the specimen, and some of the key characters rely on seeing the ventral surface of the abdomen. Many key characters seem to be easily visible in good photos though. I tried keying out a couple of your photos which are definitely high enough quality, but I tend to reach a dead end at couplet 8 often which requires a ventral shot.

II think over time the species groups may become more obvious to recognize from sight, but for the time being my baseline knowledge is still too low to know exactly what's important and what isn't.

Publicado por psyllidhipster cerca de 6 anos antes

I got some ventral shots which seem good enough for step 8. Seems a long intimidating key though so getting to species may take luck.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/12884245

Publicado por glmory quase 6 anos antes

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