New and Easternmost U.S. Records of a Juniper-Specialist Stink Bug, Banasa tumidifrons Thomas and Yonke (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae)

Abstract

In reviewing the Nearctic species of the pentatomid genus Banasa Stål, Thomas and Yonke (1981) described the new species B. tumidifrons Thomas and Yonke from California, Idaho, and Oregon. Adults, mottled green, yellow and red, are similar to those of the common and widespread B. dimidiata (Say) and the western U.S. B. rolstoni Thomas and Yonke. A tumid (i.e., swollen, enlarged) frons distinguishes B. tumidifrons from similar-appearing species of the genus, especially B. dimidiata. Adults of B. tumidifrons were collected from juniper (Juniperus: Cupressaceae) in Idaho and Oregon (Thomas and Yonke 1981). Zack et al. (2012) added Washington State to the known range. I previously added Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming to the distribution of B. tumidifrons and established that nymphs develop on fruits (berries) of female plants of its dioecious hosts: eastern redcedar (J. virginiana L.) (hereafter redcedar) and Rocky Mountain juniper (J. scopulorum Sarg.) (Wheeler 2015). I since discovered that Schuh’s (2022) Heteroptera Species Pages list records from Colorado (1985) and Wyoming (1999) that precede my collections from those states, a record from Oregon (1964) older than that cited in the original description (Thomas and Yonke 1981), and a record for Washington (1980) that predates that of Zack et al. (2012). These nine states are listed in the recent summary of the distributions of Pentatomidae north of Mexico (Rider and Swanson 2021). Records of B. tumidifrons (Wheeler 2015) were omitted from the recent additions to the Nebraska list of Pentatomidae (Ademokoya 2021). My easternmost record (101°41.11'W) for B. tumidifrons was Bird City, Kansas. I underestimated its potential eastern spread (Wheeler 2015) and here extend its known eastern range to northeastern Nebraska, and present Montana and North Dakota as new state records. I collected the pentatomid by beating branches of female redcedars, placing adults and nymphs in plastic snap-cap vials, and sorted nymphs to instar in the field. As a check on accuracy, each nymphal instar (indicated by Roman numerals under specimens examined) at a site was collected and verified with a stereoscope, as previously described (Wheeler 2015). The presence of co-occurring adults of B. sordida (Uhler) and B. euchlora Stål was recorded and representatives were collected as vouchers. Fifth instars thought to be B. tumidifrons (n = 5) and B. sordida (n = 2) were reared to adulthood to verify the association. In addition to the six counties previously recorded from the Nebraska panhandle (Wheeler 2015), I collected B. tumidifrons at 25 sites in 17 additional counties of the state, including the extensive Sandhills. Twenty-one nymphs and 113 adults were observed. Fewer numbers of the two PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 124(2), 2022, pp. 375–379