Zelus armillatus

Z. armillatus (Lepeletier & Serville, 1825) in Costa Rica

Recently, the second author was able to find and photograph adults of Z. armillatus with different colouration in Costa Rica. The site of the findings is located in Vuelta de Jorco, county of Aserrí in the province of San José, about 1100 m above sea level. The specimens were found at a plantation of Zea mays (Poaceae), which was mixed with other cultivated plants as Cucurbita argyrosperma (Cucurbitaceae) and Coriandrum sativum (Apiaceae).

Just a few days before finding specimens of Z. armillatus, the second author had found eggs, immature instars and adults of Leptoglossus gonagra (Fabricius, 1775) (Coreidae: Coreinae: Anisoscelini) at the same site, the first record of this species in Costa Rica (van der Heyden & Gamboa Hidalgo, 2014).

On 29.7.2014, a specimen of Z. armillatus was found near to the base of a leaf of Z. mays, feeding on a spider (Fig. 1). A dead bee was observed nearby (to be seen in fig. 1, too), which might imply that the reduviid bug was hiding among the leaves, waiting for prey. Large parts of the body of this specimen (pronotum, wings) were black, its legs were completely black, too.

On the same day, another specimen of Z. armillatus (Fig. 2) was found near to the base of a leaf of Z. mays, too. The body of this specimen had a yellowish colouration, parts of the -mostly black- legs were yellow, too. When the second author got closer, moving the leaves of the plant, the bug let itself fall down, probably a kind of defence, and secreted a scentless liquid, which was milky-yellowish.

One week later, on 5.8.2014, the second author found three more specimens of Z. armillatus at the same site. One specimen (Fig. 3) was yellowish, two specimens were partly black (Figs. 4 and 5).

The yellowish specimens of Z. armillatus were larger (about 20 mm) than the darker ones (about 15

mm), a sexual dimorphism, with females being larger than males.

As Z. armillatus has not been reported from Costa

Rica yet, these records are the first ones of this species in this country.