CHRYSOMELA newsletter Dedicated to information about the Chrysomelidae Report No. 54 September 2013 Inside This Issue ICE Leaf Beetle Symposium 2- Editor’s page, submissions Daegu, South Korea, 2012 2- Chrysomelid predator 3- In Memoriam - Gerhard Scherer 5- ESA 2012, USA 6- ICE Leaf beetle symposium 8- Ecuador’s Bosque Murucumba 10- Male genitalia 11- Spawn of Wilcox: Wills Flowers 15- Ophraella comuna 16- Central European chryso meeting 18- Stolas cucullata 17- Neotropical Clytrini 17- New Literature 21- New journal 24- E-mail list 9- Chrysomelid questionnaire Fig. 1. Grand Finale dinner (from left to right): Si Qin Ge, Jun-zhi Cui (Beijing, China), Nicole Kalberer-Simmen, Antje Burse (Jena, Germany), Theo Michael Schmitt, Choru Shin, Haruki Suenaga, Mai Research Activities Bing (Beijing, China), Jong Eun Lee, David G. Furth, having a great Korean dinner (story, page 6). Jéssica Viana (Curitiba, Brazil) is a Ph. D student currently working with taxonomy and phylogeny of Bruchinae. She has become Spawn of Wilcox interested in others chrysomelids, and is starting to work on the taxonomy of Chrysomelinae, especially the Neotropical fauna. Sofia Muñoz (Quito, Ecuador) is com- pleting her M.A. degree at the University of Kansas, USA. Her thesis concerns a molecu- lar phylogeny of Criocerinae (shining leaf beetles) and she is collaborating with Fred V. Vencl (Stony Brook University/STRI) and her mentor, Caroline S. Chaboo. Sofia has been awarded a fellowship from the government of Ecuador to continue doctoral research and training at a U.S. university. Fig. 1. Travellers in Peru, 2012 (from left to right): Wills Flowers, Caroline Chaboo, Pedro Cedeño, Timo Förster. Story, page 11 International Date Book The Editor’s Page 2013 Dear Chrysomelid Colleagues: Nov Entomological Society of America annual meeting, Austin, Texas As usual, I make the same appeal to support Chrysomela with your news, notices, articles, and photos 2014 on Chrysomelidae. In the age of internet, perhaps Aug European Congress of Entomology, York, UK meetings and newsletters are not so important, but our Oct Central European Chrysomelid group newsletter still seems like a nice way to keep in touch, Nov Entomological Society of America especially for members of our communities who do not go annual meeting, Portland, Oregon to meetings so often. With Chrysomela, we can share a unified picture of the latest developments and publica- tions about our taxon. We can support each other’s Chryso-predator stories and celebrate individual (e.g. the Flowers story herein) and group achievements (e.g. RoC 4 in Zookeys). I am still willing to spend time preparing this newslet- ter, one of the oldest in the Insect community. Are you still willing to support Chrysomela? - Caroline S. Chaboo Contributing to CHRYSOMELA Accounts of chrysomelid beetles and research to CHRYSOMELA are welcome. IMAGES: submit each image as separate TIFF files at 100-200 dpi (Do not embed images into text files). A photo of the author of longer articles is recommended. TEXT: submit article and figure captions as two separate word documents in 10 point Times Roman font, with paragraphs separated by double On 31 Jan 2013 I went collecting beetles in the spacing and without indents. INTERNET citations: surroundings of Padre Cocha, Loreto, Peru. This tourist please remove all hyperlinks before submission. See a village is not far from the city of Iquitos where I live. The recent issue for citations format. Please indicate photog- vegetation around it is devastated. After a few kilometers, raphers and locality in figure captions. Submissions the vegetation was better with altered forest where I did requiring much editing will be returned to the author(s). most of my day’s collecting. It was here that I spotted a ‘Recent Publications’ column: submit pdfs and a word robber fly (Asilidae) with prey that I than tried to photo- doc list of titles. graph. The prey was a familiar leaf beetle, an Eumolpinae, Generally, each issue will be about 20 pages, to that I have found commonly in the forest understory avoid slow downloading of large files from the Coleopter- around Iquitos. Wills Flowers suggests it appears to be ists Society website. Direct any questions and submis- Antitypona or Plaumanita. The robber fly was keen not to sions to the editor at [email protected]. Inclusions are loose its prey. It flew away from my camera several times subject to the approval of the editor and the advisory to land on another branch nearby, taking the prey with it. committee. The robber fly was identified as a species of Ommatius by Submission Deadlines: approximately April 1 for a June Manuel Ayala. Robber flies are known to eat diverse prey issue; approximately October 1 for a December issue including bees, grasshoppers, katydids, even damselflies In the event of too few submissions, issues will be and apparently they make no exception for Chrysomelidae consolidated into a single publication. either. -Rob Westerduijn, Iquitos, Peru The Newsletter CHRYSOMELA-Founded 1979-is published semiannully, usually in June and December. It is hosted by the Division of Entomology, 1501 Crestline Drive, Suite 140, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA, 66049-2811. E-mail: [email protected]. This newsletter is sent to students of Chrysomelidae to encourage the exchange of ideas and to disseminate information on these insects. Editor: Caroline S. Chaboo, Lawrence. Advisors: David Furth, Washington; Vivian Flinte, Rio de Janeiro; R. Wills Flowers, Tallahassee; Elizabeth Grobbelaar, Pretoria; Pierre Jolivet, Paris; Alex Konstantinov, Washington; Michael Schmitt, Greifswald; and Terry N. Seeno, Sacramento. 2 CHRYSOMELA 53, 2011 In Memoriam: Gerhard Scherer (1929 - 2012) Elisabeth Geiser (Austria) Dr. Gerhard Scherer died at 26th November 2012, a scientists, preparators and librarians. His collection few months after his 83th birthday. He was one of the contained more beetle specimens than the Bavarian State most important experts of the Alticinae of the southern Collection of Zoology at this time! Gerhard Scherer started hemisphere. there as a scientific fellow and Scherer was born at 22th advanced later on to the June 1929 in Bavaria, Germany. scientific director of the Mu- He spent his childhood and seum Frey. There he got to youth in the Chiemgau, one of research on Alticinae of the the most southern regions of southern hemisphere. He started Bavaria and part of the enthusiastic and acquired deep northern edge of the Alps. He knowledge in the next years. went to school in Traunstein Also, Gerhard Scherer got (together with his schoolfellow the chance now to participate at Josef, who was only two years International Congresses and to older, now internationally study Alticinae at the Belgian renowed by his synonym: Central Africa Museum in pope Benedikt XVIth). Tervuren near Bruxelles and Scherer was very fond of other famous collections. At the excursion to the Alps, like Natural History Museum in skiing in winter and climbing in London he discovered three summer. He got an abandoned specimens of Alticinae, col- military bicycle which he used lected by Charles Darwin in with a lot of luggage to make Uruguay, during his voyage tours together with his friends with the "Beagle". They were even to the Austrian and new and so he described them Italian Alps, which was illegal 1964 as Distigmoptera darwini in the years shortly after 1945. SCHERER. In 1961 he stayed But the custom officials knew for four months in India, Sikkim these enthusiastic young guys and Nepal and returned with a and let them pass. lot of beetle specimens, pleasant Scherer studied zoology, connections to Indian Scientists chemistry and botany at the and a lot of impressions of the University of Munich. For his very different living conditions PhD thesis he chose the topic in India compared with Central "The Beetles of the Europe. The most important Risserkogel and their relation scientific result later on was his to the environment". So he was comprehensive book" The lucky stay for several summers Alticinae of the Indian subconti- in the alpine hut (Freisinger nent" in 1969. This book, Hütte) in southern Bavaria, together with a lot of scientific though it was heavy work to papers and useful keys dealing transport the soil samples in with Alticinae of South America the cliffy paths there. and Africa was the main cause In 1959 Gerhard Scherer that Gerhard Scherer 1971 got an got his first employment at the invitation for a Senior Foreign Museum Frey, a private Scientist Fellowship at the museum for Coleopterology in University in Brookings, South Tutzing near Munich. Georg Frey, the owner was the head Dakota. Then his boss, Georg Frey, permitted him a of the Loden-Fry company, which produces alpine style sabbatical for one year. clothing (locally this label is as famous and expensive like Gerhard Scherer thus travelled with his family, his wife Armani or Dior). Frey was an enthusiastic Elisabeth and his seven year-old son, to South Dakota. coleopterologist and he established a well employed Continued next page 3 CHRYSOMELA 54, 2013 Continued from previous page 1976. Therefore he was involved heavily in the turbulences Although he was very busy there - lectures and courses at of the legacy of the Frey collection, which is now stored at the university and many talks as an invited speaker - they the Natural History Museum Basel, Switzerland, against the visited interesting parts of the country. Scherer and his last will of Georg Frey, who intended to devise it to the wife were so fond of the USA, that they returned Bavarian State Collection of Zoology. toYellowstone Park and several other places seven times Gerhard Scherer liked to contact other scientists and to after their retirement. At the end of his year in the USA, meet them face to face at congresses.