''Cartwrightia cartwrighti'' is a species of
aphodiine scarab found in South America.
Oscar L. Cartwright named the species in 1967 after his brother. ''C. cartwrighti'' has been recorded in cow dung in pastures and forests.
Description
Males are roughly long and wide; females are long and wide. The anterior
pronotal ridges are narrow and sharply
carinate
Carinate is a shape in pottery, glassware and artistic design usually applied to amphorae or vases. The shape is defined by the joining of a rounded base to the sides of an inward sloping vessel. This design is seen in ancient cultures such as ...
. There are smooth black intervals on the
elytra
An elytron (; ; , ) is a modified, hardened forewing of beetles (Coleoptera), though a few of the true bugs (Hemiptera) such as the family Schizopteridae are extremely similar; in true bugs, the forewings are called hemelytra (sometimes alterna ...
, but otherwise there is a grayish-brown clay-like covering, including on the underside.
Taxonomic history and etymology
The American entomologist
Oscar L. Cartwright wrote the
species description
A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have be ...
for ''C. cartwrighti'' in 1967. He placed it in the genus ''Cartwrightia'' which the Mexican entomologist Federico Islas Salas had named after him nine years earlier. Cartwright used three specimens to write his description: a male
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
and two female
paratype
In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype nor a syntype). Of ...
s. All three specimens were collected with a
blacklight
A blacklight, also called a UV-A light, Wood's lamp, or ultraviolet light, is a lamp that emits long-wave (UV-A) ultraviolet light and very little visible light. One type of lamp has a violet filter material, either on the bulb or in a separat ...
insect trap
Insect traps are used to monitor or directly reduce populations of insects or other arthropods, by trapping individuals and killing them. They typically use food, visual lures, chemical attractants and pheromones as bait and are installed so that ...
in early January 1960.
Cartwright named this species after his brother Raymond Kenneth Cartwright. He was not an entomologist but accompanied Cartwright on several of his collecting expeditions.
Cartwright's colleague at the
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...
Paul J. Spangler wrote Cartwright named this species "with tongue and cheek and the usual twinkle in his eye" and that this name led him to be "subjected to considerable kidding".
's illustration of ''C. cartwrighti'' which accompanied Cartwright's original description was used as a logo for the invitation to Cartwright's retirement party; there he was gifted a set of stationery which was decorated with the same image.
The name ''Cartwrightia cartwrighti'' is the only
scientific name
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
where the genus, species, and author names form a sequence using successive subtraction of the last letter to form the next word.
Distribution and Biology
''C. cartwrighti'' is found in tropical South America.
Its
type locality, where the holotype and paratypes were collected, is the Saavedra Experiment Station, north of
Santa Cruz de la Sierra
Santa Cruz de la Sierra (; "Holy Cross of the Mountain Range"), commonly known as Santa Cruz, is the largest city in Bolivia and the capital of the Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia), Santa Cruz department.
Situated on the Pirai River (Bolivia), P ...
in eastern Bolivia. This is at the edge of the
Amazon basin
The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...
near the
Gran Chaco
The Gran Chaco or Dry Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semiarid lowland natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, northern Argentina, and a portion of the Brazilian states of Mato Gro ...
.
It has been subsequently found in the Bolivian town of
San Ramón, Santa Cruz
San Ramón (Santa Cruz) is a small town in Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in t ...
,
in in the state of
Paraná in southern Brazil,
and in
Presidencia de la Plaza,
Chaco Province
Chaco (; Wichi: ''To-kós-wet''), officially the Province of Chaco ( es, provincia del Chaco ), is one of the 23 provinces in Argentina. Its capital and largest city, is Resistencia. It is located in the north-east of the country.
It is borde ...
in northern Argentina.
The studies in Presidencia de la Plaza and San Ramón found ''C. cartwrighti'' in cow dung, but only in forests but not in nearby pastures,
while the study in Paraná found specimens only in pastures but not in nearby forests.
Notes
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q14897937
Scarabaeidae
Beetles of South America
Beetles described in 1967