Toxomerus
| Toxomerus | |
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| Toxomerus marginatus female | |
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| Genus: | Toxomerus Macquart, 1855
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| Type species | |
| Toxomerus notatus Macquart, 1855
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Toxomerus is a very large genus of hoverflies. They are found in many parts of North and South America.[1][2] Most larvae are believed to feed on pollen, however in some species, the larvae are predators on soft bodied insects.[1] Adults feed on the pollen of a wide range of flowers.[3]
Morphology
The majority of species are 6-9 mm in length. However, the largest, Toxomerus Insignis, is 13 mm long and found throughout the Northeastern part of North America. A common trait of species within the genus is their mimicry of the black and yellow bands of the honey bee on their abdomen to avoid predators.[4][5] What distinguishes Toxomerus from other hoverflies is the indent located behind the back of their eyes and their unique patterns located on their abdomen. The patterns found on the abdomen are used to identify the toxomerus at the species level. Eyes are large (taking up approximately 2/3 of head) and range from red to black in color. They have one pair of transparent wings and three pairs of legs. [1] Males and females can be distinguished by the spacing of their eyes with males having tightly packed bulbous eyes and females having more space showing their ocelli.[6]
Biology
Toxomerus is part of the Syrphidae or hoverfly family. They are known for their distinctive flying behavior as their name implies. As flies they are incapable of stinging. Although they are high fidelity honey bee mimics they do not engage in behavioral mimicking such as leg waving, wing wagging, and mock-stinging. [5] They also have significantly less hair for collecting pollen compared honey bees. During their larval stage they depend on both pollen and other insects while switching to a more pollinivorous diet as an adult. [7] Their diets as adults had made some species responsible for pollination in a variety of plant families: Poaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Vaccinium, Cyperaceae ,Orobranchaceae, and more. [8][9][10][11] Adults and larvae will forage for pollen during the early daylight hours while their activity drops off at around late afternoon. [12]
As hoverflies, Toxomerus species have 4 life stages: egg, larva, pupa, adult. The lifespan of the average insect is about month and can vary depending on the season with shorter spans in the summer and longer in the winter. Mating season spans during the warmer periods and can occur midair or on the ground depending on species.[6] A female can lay up to hundreds of eggs at a time and will place them on the ground in where prey and pollen food sources are readily available.[12][6][3] They can be found in a wide variety of habitats. Most species are terrestrial and hide in dense ground cover including grasses and leaves.[12][13] Some can do well in urban environments and can be responsible for a large percentage of pollination in gardens.[14]
Ecology
Not all of Toxomerus species have been properly classified, though over 130 Neotropical species and 6 endemic Nearctic species are known (Mengual 2011). Some species have been discovered in the Old World in the afrotropics and are assumed to have been introduced due their high genetic similarity to South American species.[11] Toxomerus species are the most abundant hoverflies (or syrphid flies) in the Americas (Metz and Thompson, 2001). Toxomerus marginatus is the most ubiquitous species in the North, brooding multiple times per year (polyvoltine). Toxomerus dispar is the most common in the tropics, though T. pulchellus is more common in some areas.
Toxomerus is a genus of insects within the family Syrphidae (Flower flies; hoverflies), which is predominately composed of species that rear predatory larvae (Proctor et al., 1996, cited by Jordaens et al., 2015) that typically feed on aphids. Predatory Toxomerus larvae have been found to feed on Hemiptera, Araci, and Thysanoptera insects, along with Lepidoptera larvae. Toxomerus species are usually about 6 mm, though some species have been found to be larger than 9 mm. Both molecular and morphological analysis have been used to establish Toxomerus monophyly.
Toxomerus is largely a predatory group, with the known exceptions of three species: Toxomerus apegiensis, Toxomerus politus (Reemer and Rotheray, 2009), and Toxomerus floralis (Jordaens et al., 2015).T. politus larvae feed on the pollen of Zea Mays (corn), and T. apegiensis larvae feed on the pollen of Olyra obliquifolia (bamboo). T. floralis, the larvae of which feed on pollen from Cyperus rotundus (Java grass) and Mitracarpus hirtus (tropical girdleweed), is the only known species within the Syrphidae family whose larvae feeds on plants from different families (Jordaens et al., 2015). Generally, little information is known about the larval biology of Taxomerus species. Research suggests that other phytophagous Toxomerus species may be found by searching plants related to rainforest Olyra species.
Species
List of Toxomerus species
References
- ^ a b c Mengual, Ximo; Gunilla Stahls; Santos Rojo (2008). "First phylogeny of predatory flower flies (Diptera, Syrphidae, Syrphinae) using mitochondrial COI and nuclear 28S rRNA genes: conflict and congruence with the current tribal classification" (PDF). Cladistics. 24. Wiley-Blackwell: 543–562. doi:10.1111/j.1096-0031.2008.00200.x. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-04-09. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ Reemer, M. (2010). "A second survey of Surinam Syrphidae (Diptera):introduction and Syrphinae" (PDF). Tijdschrift voor Entomologie. 153 (2): 163–196. doi:10.1163/22119434-900000295.
- ^ a b Reemer, Menno; Rotheray, Graham E. (16 April 2009). "Pollen feeding larvae in the presumed predatory syrphine genus Toxomerus Macquart (Diptera, Syrphidae)". Journal of Natural History. 43 (15). UK: Taylor and Francis: 939–949. doi:10.1080/00222930802610576. ISSN 1464-5262.
{{cite journal}}:|format=requires|url=(help) - ^ Shorter, Daniel A, and W A Drew. “SYRPHIDAE OF OKLAHOMA (DIPTERA).” Oklahoma State University, Department of Biology, Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Alva, Oklahoma, and Department of Entomology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, digital.library.okstate.edu/oas/oas_pdf/v56/p75_94.pdf.
- ^ a b Penney, Heather D., et al. "The relationship between morphological and behavioral mimicry in hover flies (Diptera: Syrphidae)." The American Naturalist 183.2 (2013): 281-289.
- ^ a b c "Undeniably Interesting Facts About Hoverflies". AnimalSake. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
- ^ Thompson, F, and Betty Thompson. “A New Toxomerus Species from Chile (Diptera: Syrpliidae.” Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Institution, 2007, repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/4385/Thompson_Thompson2007.pdf.
- ^ Borges, Zuleica M., and Marcia S. Couri. "Revision of Toxomerus Macquart, 1855 (Diptera: Syrphidae) from Brazil with synonymic notes, identification key to the species and description of three new species." Zootaxa 2179.s/n (2009).
- ^ Neel, Maile C. "Conservation implications of the reproductive ecology of Agalinis acuta (Scrophulariaceae)." American Journal of Botany 89.6 (2002): 972-980.
- ^ Kevan, P. G., et al. "Pollination of cranberries, Vaccinium macrocarpon, on cultivated marshes in Ontario." Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Ontario. Vol. 114. 1983.
- ^ a b Jordaens, Kurt, et al. "A second New World hoverfly, Toxomerus floralis (Fabricius)(Diptera: Syrphidae), recorded from the Old World, with description of larval pollen-feeding ecology." Zootaxa 4044.4 (2015): 567-576.
- ^ a b c Dumbardon-Martial, Eddy. "Pollen feeding in the larva of Toxomerus pulchellus (Diptera, Syrphidae)." Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France 121.4 (2016): 413-420.
- ^ "Syrphidae, hover flies". www.bumblebee.org. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
- ^ Lowenstein, David M., Kevin C. Matteson, and Emily S. Minor. "Diversity of wild bees supports pollination services in an urbanized landscape." Oecologia 179.3 (2015): 811-821.
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