Cacostola leonensis is a species of longhorn beetle (family Cerambycidae, subfamily Lamiinae, tribe Onciderini) described by Lawrence S. Dillon and Elizabeth S. Dillon in 1946. It is the type species of no genus; rather, it is one of the species assigned to the genus Cacostola Fairmaire & Germain, 1859.
Taxonomy and nomenclature
The species was originally described in Dillon & Dillon's 1946 monograph The Tribe Onciderini (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), Part II (Scientific Publications, Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, Pennsylvania, vol. 6, pp. 189–413), with the description appearing on p. 259. The accepted binomial is Cacostola leonensis Dillon & Dillon, 1946. Its taxonomic placement is:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Arthropoda
- Class: Insecta
- Order: Coleoptera
- Family: Cerambycidae
- Subfamily: Lamiinae
- Tribe: Onciderini (subtribe Onciderina)
- Genus: Cacostola
The holotype is a female specimen held at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, with the type locality recorded as Coamo Springs, Puerto Rico. The species is treated as a valid, accepted name by major taxonomic authorities including ITIS (Taxonomic Serial No. 702545), Catalogue of Life, IRMNG, and GBIF.
Distribution
The type locality is Puerto Rico. ITIS lists the geographic division as the Caribbean (native). Chalumeau & Touroult (2005) and the taxonomic database lamiinae.org additionally record the species from Hispaniola (Dominican Republic) and St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands). Lingafelter & Micheli (2004) recorded it from localities in Puerto Rico including Aguirre and Maricao. Some databases and aggregators list the name with differing author/date associations (for example, a GBIF record attributing it to "Lingafelter & Micheli, 2004"); such entries appear to reflect citation or data-mapping inconsistencies rather than a separate valid species, but this is not fully documented in readily available sources.
Description and biology
Species-specific morphological diagnoses for C. leonensis are contained chiefly in the original 1946 description and in regional treatments. At the generic level, Cacostola species are described as distinctly elongate, small to moderate-sized longhorn beetles (roughly 8–15 mm in length), generally dark brown or ferrugineous with grayish pubescence, with a subquadrate, roughly cylindrical pronotum lacking lateral tubercles, and elytra with roughly parallel sides. Members of the genus have been collected at lights and by beating vegetation. Detailed host-plant and life-history information specific to C. leonensis is not well documented in the accessible literature; host records compiled for the genus as a whole include plants in the families Acanthaceae, Anacardiaceae, Asteraceae, Chrysobalanaceae, Mimosaceae, Rhamnaceae, Salicaceae, and Ulmaceae, but these should not be assumed to apply to this species in particular.
Note on the specific epithet: The name element leonensis is a Latinized geographic adjective (the suffix -ensis meaning "of" or "belonging to" a place), a common convention in binomial nomenclature. The specific place to which it refers is not confirmed in the sources consulted here; in some cases such epithets derive from an old or obscure locality name rather than a modern place.
This is an established taxonomic concept with records in multiple authoritative biodiversity databases.
