Forum Entomologi Italiani

Waiting for photos of additional specimens belonging to both involved taxa, I post here an improved image of my single suzannae from Greece.

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Maurizio Bollino

Maurizio, direi che la tua tecnica fotografica ha fatto "qualche" progresso, in questi otto mesi!

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Maurizio Gigli
http://utenti.romascuola.net/bups
http://bup.xoom.it/

@ Maurizio:

Very good, this is possible, if there are enough potential hostplants it could be a very common species in such a region, but I haven’t seen so much specimens of semicuprea so far. I think the best methode to find out the variability of these taxa is to rearing some specimens (as much as possible) from Acer sp. and another serie of suzannae from fruit trees from your country. Maybe then it can be cleared.
The size of coloration of my serie of semicuprea (males and females) from one place is amazing constant. Also my other serie of suzannae (also males and females) from another place shows the same form and size of coloration like on my photo. In my opinion it can’t be the same species, besides the way of living in both taxa is different and Bílý (1999) discribed also differences between the larvas. Maybe it exists different groups in central and south europe and they have a different evolution.


@ AdRuicanescu

The main morphological differences of both species are in my opinion especially the coloration, including the green-blue triangle of the elytrae and the form and size of the two black spots on the pronotum! as well as the form of pronotum, but the last character is rather variable. Besides the aedeagi are a little bit different in both taxa, Maurizio has already said. That is why this problem is so complicated, because the main character is the coloration.
You are right, on my photo are shown a male of A. semicuprea and a female of A. suzannae, the reason why I chose them is simple: To make such a kind of photo you must spend much time and work, so far I didn’t photograph male and female of the two species, maybe I will do this later but not now. The coloration in both sexes in one species is the same.

Tomasius

This is exactly what I've said. The green-blue triangle (that is almost a half-circle in salicis. But The pronotum shape as well as the black spots can be a good difference. But there are differences in pronotum shape between male and female of the same species. That's why I would see in a photo a male of semicuprea vs. a male of suzannae, then a female of semicuprea vs. a female of suzannae. Thank you.

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Ciao
Adrian