Dorcasina Casey, 1913

Dorcasina Casey, 1913:269
     matthewsii (LeConte, 1869:384)
          macrocera Casey, 1913:270

Dorcasina is represented by only two species worldwide, both of which are endemic to North America. One species, Dorcasina mathewsii ​(LeConte) inhabits the Pacific Northwest, ranging from British Columbia to California. Its congener, D. grossa (LeConte) is restricted to the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California.

Diagnosis. Males of D. mathewsi are easily identified among our northwestern lepturines by their antennae, which are longer than the length of the body. According to Linsley and Chemsak (1976, p. 63), "Members of this genus can be recognized by the elongate, opaque male antennae with segments three to five thickened. Also characteristic are the parallel tempora, the short front of the head, and the acute hind angles of the pronotum. Females have much shorter opaque antennae and the body form is very robust and parallel."  

Notes on Taxonomic History  
Dorcasina was initially described by Casey (1913, p. 269) within a key to his newly-classified subgenera of Leptura. Casey included four species in Leptura (Dorcasina): mathewsi LeConte, macrocera n. sp., biforis Newman (1841), and laurentica n. sp., and comments that “It would be almost a certainty that Lept. gnathoides of LeConte, belongs to this subgenus, were it not that the antennae seem too short and heavy; in coloration it agrees with the four species above assigned to it.” (p. 271).   The subgenus was promoted to genus in Chemsak (1964). Linsley and Chemsak (1972) considered the species macrocera Casey to be a synonym of Dorcasina mathewsi, and placed biforis Casey into a new genus Lepturopis Linsley and Chemsak (1976: 158) with laurentica Casey as a synonym. Casey’s biforis/laurentica differed by mathewsi/macrocera in having the lateral angles of the pronotum less pronounced.  Linsley and Chemsak also followed Leng (1920) by including LeConte’s (1873: 218) Leptura grossa in the genus.

References

1. Casey, T. L. 1913. Further studies amongst the American Longicornia. Memoirs on the Coleoptera, 4:193-388. <Link to Biodiversity Heritage Library> <PDF>
2. Chemsak, J. A. 1964. Type species of generic names applied to North American Lepturinae (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae). The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 40(4):231-237.
3. LeConte, J. L. 1869. List of the Coleoptera collected in Vancouver's Island by Henry and Joseph Matthews with descriptions of some new species. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. (4)4:368-385. <Link to BHL> <PDF>
4. LeConte, J. L. 1873a. New species of North American Coleoptera. Prepared for the Smithsonian Institution. Part II. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections.  11(264):169-240. <Link to BHL> <PDF>
5. Leng, C. W. 1920. Catalogue of the Coleoptera of America, north of Mexico. 470 pp. Mt. Vernon, N.Y (Suppl. I., 1927, 72 pp.). (Suppl. II-III, 1933, 112 pp.).
6. Linsley, E.G. and J.A. Chemsak. 1976. Cerambycidae of North America. Part VI, No.2. Taxonomy and Classification of the Subfamily Lepturinae. University of California Publications in Entomology 80, 186 pp.