Subject: odd bug
Location: NE Los Angeles County, California (Tujunga, CA 91042)
July 14, 2017 5:21 pm
It flies, it is the size of a large carpenter bee. I has a beetle like head ans wings that are orange, white and black that appear to attach at the back legs. His coloration is much like a monarch caterpillar on his body.
Signature: Pauline Penn
Dear Pauline,
This is one of the wasp-mimicking moths in the family Sesiidae, and we were lucky to locate the Sesiidae of Los Angeles County page on iNaturalist. We believe this is a Glorious Squash Vine Borer, Melittia gloriosa. There are some nice images on BugGuide. According to BugGuide it is also called the Manroot Borer and “Larvae bore in the large tubers of various cucurbitaceous plants.” Manroot is a native plant that is also known as wild cucumber. The dried leaves in your one image appear to be the leaves of a manroot.
That is him, and that is also the dried leaves of the Manroot in the backyard.
This is indeed a Glorious Squash Vine Borer, originally described from California by Henry Edwards in 1880. It occurs from Kansas south to western Texas and Mexico, and west through New Mexico and Arizona into southern California and the Channel Islands, north to central Oregon.
In addition to boring in the large tubers of manroot (there are five species of Marah in California: http://tinyurl.com/y9je2msy), the larvae are also reported from other cucurbits, including Calabazilla or Missouri gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima), coyote melon (Cucurbita palmata), and fingerleaf gourd (Cucurbita digitata). [source: The Moths of America North of Mexico, Fascicle 5.1: Sesioidea: Sesiidae, 1989, by Thomas D. Eichlin and W. Donald Duckworth]
More images and a distribution map on the Moth Photographers Group: http://tinyurl.com/ybh9gyer
Thanks for all the information Julian. This is a new species for What’s That Bug?
This is indeed a Glorious Squash Vine Borer, originally described from California by Henry Edwards in 1880. It occurs from Kansas south to western Texas and Mexico, and west through New Mexico and Arizona into southern California and the Channel Islands, north to central Oregon.
In addition to boring in the large tubers of manroot (there are five species of Marah in California: http://tinyurl.com/y9je2msy), the larvae are also reported from other cucurbits, including Calabazilla or Missouri gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima), coyote melon (Cucurbita palmata), and fingerleaf gourd (Cucurbita digitata). [source: The Moths of America North of Mexico, Fascicle 5.1: Sesioidea: Sesiidae, 1989, by Thomas D. Eichlin and W. Donald Duckworth]
More images and a distribution map on the Moth Photographers Group: http://tinyurl.com/ybh9gyer