Texas Beetle Information

Return to Texas Entomology - Compiled by Mike Quinn

Red-headed Beauty

Stenaspis verticalis insignis (Casey)

Family Cerambycidae, Subfamily Cerambycinae, Tribe Trachyderini

Natural Gardner, Austin, Travis Co., TX
early September 2005 (S Young & S Ashbaugh)

Texas County Records for Stenaspis verticalis insignis

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County Record Source: E.G. Riley, Nov. 2005
(Plus Kendall and Bandera Counties)

Range: South-central Texas to Northern Mexico

Description: The elytra are variably colored purple, turquoise, green or even brown. Prothorax have a variable amount of black.

Adult Activity: June to November, most specimens in the Texas A&M University Insect Collection from October.

Larval Host: Unknown, probably utilizes a living host, possibly mesquite or acacia (Dan Heffern, pers. comm.).

Biology: Adults strongly attracted to plant exudates.

Note:

On October 14, 2005, 2 miles west of Utopia, Uvalde Co., Mitch Heindel found 5 pairs incopula and a few unattached males on on Evergreen Sumac (Rhus virens) Anacardiaceae, and a couple of singles on another of the same shrub.

Similar Species: There are seven species of Stenaspis, two of which range north of Mexico.

Stenaspis solitaria (Say) - Southwestern U.S. to south Texas and northern Mexico.
Stenaspis verticalis arizonicus Casey - Arizona
Stenaspis verticalis insignis (Casey) - South-central Texas to Northern Mexico

Etymology: verticalis

vertic (L). The apex
calli (G). A beauty; beautiful

Biography: Thomas Lincoln Casey (1857-1925) was a very prolific coleopterist and an army engineer stationed is various Texas locations ca. 1886.

References:

Arnett, R.H., Jr., M.C. Thomas, P. E. Skelley & J.H. Frank. (editors). 2002. American Beetles, Volume II: Polyphaga: Scarabaeoidea through Curculionoidea. CRC Press. 861 pp.

Borror, D.J. 1960. Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms. National Press Books, Palo Alto. v + 134 pp.

Casey, T.L. 1924. Memoirs on the Coleoptera. XI. Lancaster: New Era Printing Company. 347 pp.

Goldsmith, S.K. 1989. Feeding Ecology and the Mating System of Stenaspis verticalis arizonicus Casey (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 62:528-533.