(Figures 26, 27)
Platylabus opaculus americanus Heinrich, 1962b: 730 (descr., key, allotype designation); Heinrich 1975: 774 (distr.); Carlson 1979: 545 (cat., distr., notes); Yu and Horstmann 1997: 679 (cat.); Schmidt and Schmidt 2011: 90 (cat.); Yu et al. 2016 (cat.).
Original type series
Holotype ♀, by original designation (ZSM); allotype 1♂ (CNCI); paratypes: 3♀♀ (ZSM), 3♀♀ (CNCI), 3♀♀ (EMUS).
Type locality
United States of America, Maine, Alagash.
c) Habitus, lateral view.
Material examined
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, MASSACHUSETTS: Rowley, Essex Country, 30 August 2010, det. R. Carlson, 2♀♀ (BugGuide); NORTH CAROLINA: Mt. Pisgah, elevation 4[000]– 5000 ft., 5 July 1959, leg. H.V. Weems, det. Townes 1967, 1♀ (FSCA).
Updated distribution (Figure 27)
CANADA: Alberta (Heinrich 1962b); British Columbia (Heinrich 1962b); Québec (Heinrich 1962b); Newfoundland and Labrador (Heinrich 1975); Ontario (Heinrich 1962b); UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Maine (Heinrich 1962b); Massachusetts (Carlson 2010b) Michigan (Heinrich 1962b); New York (Heinrich 1962b); North Carolina (new state record); Oregon (Heinrich 1962b); Washington (Heinrich 1962b).
Host
Unknown.
Male
Described by Heinrich (1962b, p. 730) in the original description, based on a single male that he designated as allotype. The other two known male specimens of the species are from Newfoundland and Labrador, recorded by Heinrich (1975, p. 774).
Comments
Platylabus opaculus Thomson, 1888, is split in two subspecies, one with European distribution (the nominotypical subspecies), and the other occurring in the Nearctic (Heinrich 1962b, p. 730). According to Heinrich (1962b, p. 730), the only difference between the two is the colour of the legs, which are entirely black in Platylabus opaculus opaculus and rufous in Platylabus opaculus americanus.
The records from Massachusetts are from BugGuide and identified by Carlson (2010b) as Platylabus opaculus. However, these have not been recorded in any paper or catalogue (see Yu et al. 2016). The new record for North Carolina is based on a female specimen found at the FSCA that Townes identified as Platylabus opaculus americanus in 1967, which DDP double checked, confirming Townes’ identification. The record has never been reported in any paper or catalogue (cf. Yu et al. 2016), and apparently Heinrich (1975) was not aware of it since no mention of it appears in his paper.
The record of Platylabus opaculus americanus for North Carolina also marks the southernmost distributional record for the subspecies and the first for the south-eastern United States (Figure 22b).