Culicoides Latreille and Leptoconops Skuse biting midges of the southwestern United States with emphasis on the Canyonlands of southeastern Utah (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) Author Phillips, Robert A. 2962 Desert Road Moab, UT 84532 USA text Insecta Mundi 2022 2022-01-28 2022 907 1 214 journal article 10.5281/zenodo.6391684 1942-1354 6391684 CBD29188-143B-44DF-BE21-1654D50D8621 Culicoides ( Amossovia ) cochisensis Wirth and Blanton ( Fig. 101 , 155, 191) Culicoides cochisensis Wirth and Blanton, 1967: 218 (key; female, male, pupa; fig. female antenna, wing, eye separation, spermathecae, leg, palpus, male genitalia, parameres; Arizona ; paratype records show Culicoides villosipennis Root and Hoffman record for Utah was a misidentification). Wirth et al. 1985: 20 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Wirth et al. 1988: 30 (numerical characters; fig. female wing). Murphree and Mullen 1991: 330 (key; larva; numerical characters; fig. epipharynx, mandible, hypostoma, caudal segment). Culicoides ( Amossovia ) cochisensis : Borkent and Spinelli 2000: 27 (in Neotropical catalog). Culicoides villosipennis Root and Hoffman , misidentified: Bullock 1952: 24 (misspelled as “villosopennis”; key; female [male description invalid]; Utah : Salt Lake County). Rees and Bullock 1954 (misspelled as “villosopennis”; Utah : Salt Lake County). Diagnosis. ( Tables 14 , 15 ) Dark brown; wing pattern distinct; r 2 dark; distal pale spot in r 3 medially constricted and roughly C-shaped; pale spots straddling at ~0.2 on M 1 and ~0.4 on M 2 ; CuA 1 and CuA 2 within dark areas except at tip of CuA 1 ; pore of sensory pit on palpal segment 3>0.5 the diameter of segment (as in Fig. 247 C . californiensis ); pale band subapical on hind tibiae, absent from hind femora and subapically from fore and mid tibiae; ventral apodeme of gonocoxite simple; aedeagus Y-shaped, median process slender to pointed tip; parameres separate, apices simple, pointed. Distribution. California , Utah (Salt Lake City), Arizona , Baja California . The only Utah record is of a female collected at a window in Salt Lake City 14 September 1952 ( Bullock 1952 ). The other collection records are from the Sonoran Desert; hence, it is likely not resident in Utah , and the record is of a transient. Larval ecology and adult behavior. Culicoides cochisensis larvae have been collected from water in a pocket of a saguaro cactus ( Carnegiea gigantea [Engelmann] Britton and Rose, Cactaceae ) ( Wirth and Blanton 1967 ). However, its adult hosts are unknown, though the mandibular and lacinial teeth on the female indicate it feeds on vertebrate blood.