Blister Beetle from China: Possibly Lytta species

bugman

February 15th, 2010 at 6:35 pm

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Red headed Chinese beetle for Identification
February 15, 2010
Dear Bugman,
I would be very grateful if you could help identify this beetle to any taxanomic level. I saw it in Sichuan province last July on a mountain path at about 600-900m. To my inexperienced eye it is very unusual but my guess is it’s some kind of rove beetle.
Thanks
Ed
Sanmeishui, Sichuan

Blister Beetle

Hi Ed,
Though Rove Beetle was a good guess, this is actually a Blister Beetle in the family Meloidae. It resembles many North American species in the genus Lytta, which you can compare on BugGuide, so that genus is our best guess at the moment.

Hi Daniel, thank you for your ID. Yes I see now it is a blister beetle and that
they have quite a characteriustic shape. Lytta looks like the correct genus, I
see that many species have different patterns of red on their head and thorax
with a black abdomen. Must be closely related to these N American spp.
Best Wishes
Ed

add Blister Beetle from China: Possibly Lytta species

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Comments 2

kkroeker wrote:
It could also be a species of Epicauta. Several Asian species have red heads only, with all or mostly black bodies. For example, you could compare to E. tibialis and E. hirticornis at:
http://hk-green.com/images/insect/PICT4397n.jpg
http://insecta.idv.tw/wiki/index.php/Epicauta_hirticornis
Posted 19 Feb 2010 at 9:21 am ¶
boa03eas wrote:
Hi, thanks for your message. I’ve looked at your links and you’re right, it’s definitely this genus if not one of these spp. I also read on BugGuide that Lytta has relatively clubbed antenna while Epicauta have thread like antenna as in my photo. Couldn’t spot any difference between the spp that could help me identify my beetle though, and I suppose there could be many more similar looking Epicauta. Saying that I’m very pleased to get it to genus.
Posted 19 Feb 2010 at 4:35 pm ¶