Enneboeus marmoratus - please help look for this little beetle species in California

Last summer, I photographed an unfamiliar, small, dark beetle at our balcony lights in San Francisco. An expert (Matt Gimmel) eventually identified it as Enneboeus marmoratus, a new species for the US, and published a paper on the find:

I again found quite a few of these beetles at a black light placed on our balcony recently (a year later), so this appears to be a persistent and even abundant introduced species here in Noe Valley. The question is how widespread is this beetle in in the Bay Area or beyond? If you look for insects at lights or put out a black light for moths, etc. - please consider looking for and photographing small (3-4 mm) dark beetles with somewhat vague dark red patches of hairs on the back of the elytra, somewhat resembling a dark lady beetle to my eyes (see links above). Thanks!

@kueda @loarie @gyrrlfalcon @tiwane @finatic @damontighe @silversea_starsong @catchang @moonlittrails @owicki @rjadams55

Publicerat 27 september 2018 17.36 av

kschnei

Kommentarer

Very cool @kschnei! I'll be on the lookout.

Inlagt av tiwane över 5 år sedan

so cool @kschnei !

Inlagt av alexs_test19 över 5 år sedan

@kschnei - would collections be useful if we encounter it? Ethanol storage or another preferred method?

Inlagt av damontighe över 5 år sedan

Thank you for posting this. I will certainly keep my eyes open.

Inlagt av rjadams55 över 5 år sedan

@damontighe : yes, collecting them would be ideal (ethanol is fine). FWIW, I've mostly encountered them on warm, late summer and fall nights (not a common situation in San Francisco, but we get them occasionally)... I assume that folks are more likely to be out there looking and photographing on warm evenings anyway....

Inlagt av kschnei över 5 år sedan

Thanks - I am happy to photograph anything that I can see!

Inlagt av gyrrlfalcon över 5 år sedan

Really cool. It's not even from a Family that I've seen. But I'll be looking for it down south here.

Inlagt av finatic över 5 år sedan

will keep an eye out

Inlagt av loarie över 5 år sedan

@kschnei, curious that you are only acknowledged in the publication ... and not a co-author given that you found this critter and got it into the right hands. Just raising a question about the role of ‘citizen scientists’ in the discovery process. I don’t have the answers. A new sp. observation in the US seems like leaps and bounds above the typical observation of a species in a new location, etc. And, of course, I’ll keep an eye out. Cheers.

Inlagt av metsa över 5 år sedan

@metsa : Matt generously offered to make me an author on this paper, but I declined and asked to be in the acknowledgements instead. I think it might be a "gray area", but I felt that finding a beetle I couldn't identify and getting help from an expert didn't qualify for authorship in my mind. I've authored or been a co-author on scientific papers in the past and I feel like I would need to make more of a substantive contribution to the body of the paper...

Inlagt av kschnei över 5 år sedan

Looks like @catchang found this species in Oakland!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17054533

So perhaps it has spread throughout the Bay Area? Will be very curious if folks find it elsewhere in California.

Inlagt av kschnei över 5 år sedan

@damontighe Do you have ethanol and collection tubes? I’ll try tonight as well.

Inlagt av catchang över 5 år sedan

@catchang I've got tubes and 98% Ethanol

Inlagt av damontighe över 5 år sedan

Another great example of the power of the iNat community! :)

Inlagt av kschnei över 5 år sedan

Collection completed.

Inlagt av catchang över 5 år sedan

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