Emily: After finding a bunch of Beatty notes about Argia specimens that were loaned to Dolly Gloyd, I looked into some recent research on the phylogeny of this genus. We have many specimens that have determinations that are down to the group, but not the species. Caeser and Wenzel (2009) sought to look at the groups of the 118 described species in this genus, and found Argia to be monophyletic. Using 10 morphological characters as well as 16S rDNA from fresh and museum specimens up to 20 years old, they generated strict consensus trees of 38 and 6 parsimonious trees that are closely related, even though they have poorly resolved consensus. The combined parsimony tree is in line with the classical species groups that had been proposed by the likes of many Argia taxonomists over the years. The clade that seemed to be the most difficult to sort out in this research, oculata, is one that we actually have many unresolved species of at the Frost! Who knows what will be next for this huge genus of damselflies!
Carolyn: I have translated more of Paul Dessart’s 1997 publication “Trois Conostigmus roux-noir nord-americains (Hymenoptera Ceraphronoidea Megaspilidae)“, or “Three Red-Black Conostigmus from North America (Hymenoptera Ceraphronoidea Megaspilidae”. I started translating this work a few weeks ago because I wanted to learn more about an odd species he discusses called Conostigmus pulchellus. This species was described from a single male, and Dessart was the first to describe what the female looks like. I have both male and female specimens in the lab matching Dessart’s description, and I wanted to translate the paper to see what he thought connected the two. It turns out that he had a lot of doubts whether or the female actually does match the male. His species description even comes with the following disclaimer: “Given the novelty of the female sex and the eventuality that it may be a third species of a very complex related species, and despite the inevitable repetitions, here is a detailed full description of the female.”
Andy: We just came back from an epic expedition with the Ware lab, to the stunning pine barrens of New Jersey (My first time in that habitat!). We’ll undoubtedly post much more about that trip this week—trapping and specimen prep experiences, crazy insects (Hagenius! Nannothemis!) we collected, wacky ideas we came up with, etc. I managed to read quite a bit by hand-cranked LED lantern( ̄~ ̄)light while in the field, mainly Field Notes on Science & Nature—which is sometimes wow! and, if I have to be honest, sometimes ◔_◔ —and this epic chapter by Gilbert (2004) on imperfect mimicry. A month or so ago I had a nice collection of shower thoughts on Syrphidae-Aculeata mimicry I was going to roll into a sweet entry in the Journal of Brief Ideas and a summer internship project. Well, after some quick research (the Gilbert article is an awesome starting point) I am still excited … but now accept that a few of my ideas are not novel … ◕︵◕ It’s a seriously compelling system, though, and we have ideas on how to constructively carry our work forward. Collections FTW!
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