Aedeagus

Here are some images of the aedeagus of the Apodrosus species. As you can see, there is three different 'schemes', one of which is shared by three of the species. In some cases has been difficult to describe the apex and the sclerites of the internal sac of this structure.

There remain three new species for describe, two from the Dominican Republic and one from Haiti. I'll be working on build the genus description in order to cover all the variations found and to get a particular set of characters for each species. I hope to finish before may 20... let's see...

Baptism

Last days I've been thinking about names for the new species. It was a little complex to decide if name for morphological conspicuous characters, by the place in which the species was collected or in honor to someone.
After thinking about the collecting experience in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, I've decided to name one species for the collecting place, which is the highest elevation of P.R.; another one for the collecting place, named in honor to a Taíno Cacique; another one which was founded in different collecting places through D.R., will be named for the Taíno name of the island; another one for its green coloration; the species from Bahamas, for its coloration too.
If the names are approved, I'll let you know!

Comparative descriptions

Recently I've "finished" the Apodrosus argentatus morphological description and I'm using it for describe A. wolcotti. When changes are being made, it is necessary to go back into A. argentatus traits. This way, new characters are appearing by comparison. The problem, maybe you can become excesively meticulous on the descriptions... but really, until now I can't know when stop!

Here a sample of "new" characters: Male tergites VII & VIII; Sternum VII


Anterior and posterior margins, the sculpture of surface, the projections... all are becoming important because they vary, but only by comparison it is clear.

ESA 2008

After too much time, finally an update to this blog!

Here are a picture of me with the poster that I've presented at the ESA meeting in Reno NV, last november.

If you want to see a PDF of the poster, you can go to: http://academic.uprm.edu/~franz/publications/Giron-ESA2008-Poster.pdf

Spermathecae

Here are photographs of the spermathecae of the two described and six new species of Apodrosus.

New species

This week I've review the Apodrosus specimens from UPRM collection and CWOB loan.
The specimens were sorted having in account characters as:

• Extension of median furrow
• Projection of eyes in dorsal view
• Width of frons
• Extension of scrobe and antennal scape
• Surface of elytra
• Separation of elytral striae IX and X
• Coloration of scales

Based on those criteria, between others, nine species were cataloged and prepared for dissection of terminalia, excepting sp. 7 JCG, because there is only one male and one completely sclerotized female.
When dissections were done, we have five definitively new species of Apodrosus:

• sp. 1. JCG: Puerto Rico, Cerro de Punta - UPRM
  
• sp. 2 JCG: Bahamas, Andros Is. - CWOB
• sp. 3 JCG: Dominican Republic, Independencia - CWOB & UPRM
• sp. 4 JCG: Dominican Republic, Peravia - CWOB
• sp. 5 JCG: Dominican Republic, Pedernales - CWOB & UPRM

• sp. 7 JCG was not dissected
• sp. 8 JCG corresponds to A. argentatus
• sp. 9 JCG may correspond to A. argentatus, but needs a detailed comparison.

* sp 6 JCG is not an Apodrosus, but can be closely related.




Schemes of aedeagus and espermatheca would be prepared soon in order to include it in the poster for the 56th ESA meeting in Reno.

What I'm doing now?

On the summer, the Franz lab went to the Dominican Republic in a collecting trip across the country. 61 localities were visited looking for entimines (and other interesting insects) and almost always this weevils were located.
The collected material was brought to the UPRM Invertebrate Collection, where this was sorted, mounted and labeled and is ready to be identified.
In the collecting and sorting process, weevils belonging to Apodrosus were recognized (a time ago the specialist Charles O'Brien told us about new species of Apodrosus from the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas; we are already borrowed this material from him).
At this moment at least five new species has been separated and cataloged in a database of the collecting localities.
These are the next objective of the project, but at the moment, the morphology is being reviewed as a necessary step before to deal with the new species description.