Odontota scapularis (Olivier)

Eiseman, Charles S., 2014, New Host Records and Other Notes on North American Leaf-Mining Chrysomelidae (Coleoptera), The Coleopterists Bulletin 68 (3), pp. 351-359 : 354

Odontota scapularis (Olivier)

This species is known to mine leaves of Apios americana Medik. (Fabaceae) , but apparently no specific details of its habits have been published. I observed adults mating on A. americana foliage on 15 June 2011 in Pelham, Massachusetts, and on 20 June I returned and located eggs. These were deposited in clusters on the undersides of leaves and capped with a dark coating of excrement, as reported for Odontota dorsalis (Thunberg) ( Staines 2006) . Each cluster I found was deposited against one side of the midrib. The blotch mine was initially confined to one side of the midrib, but ultimately crossed it at the leaf tip and occupied a large portion of the leaf ( Fig. 10 ). In one egg cluster I photographed, at least six parasitoid wasp pupae could be seen inside and there was a hole where one had already emerged ( Fig. 11 ). I also photographed an adult Closterocerus Westwood sp. ( Hymenoptera : Eulophidae ) that was loitering on the same leaf. No Closterocerus has previously been associated with the genus Odontota , but both C. cinctipennis Ashmead and C. trifasciatus (Westwood) have been reared from eggs of Baliosus nervosus ( Hansson 1994) .

Figures

Figs. 7–12. 7) Presumed mine of Microrhopala rubrolineata in Brickellia betonicifolia leaf; 8) Brickellia betonicifolia leaf with skeletonizing by adult Octotoma marginicollis. The mine along the leaf margin was possibly made by a larva of this species; 9) Hog-peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata) leaf with mine of Odontota mundula overlapping mine of Leucanthiza amphicarpeaefoliella. The latter is visible as an indistinct band of frass in the lower left; 10) Mine of Odontota scapularis in groundnut leaf, with excrement-covered egg mass at right edge of photo; 11) Odontota scapularis egg mass containing pupae of parasitoid wasps; 12) Mine of Stenopodius texanus in Abutilon leaf.