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Tiny Flea Beetle of the Leaf Beetle Family Chrysomelidae. 3 mm long, with expanded hind femora for jumping. Black elytra with orange head, thorax and legs. These beetles can cause severe damage to leaves when in large numbers.
Chorreadero Park, Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico.
Wow Michael. You've got my poor brain spinning. Think I'll just wait…you know all dizzy and lost or something…...
Sorry, this is clearly not a species of Asphaera. The body shape doesn't match (Asphaera are always flatter), and most importantly, the pronotum has a transverse furrow near the base, which is never present in Asphaera and related genera.
Now, for Mexican flea beetle, it's extremely difficult to find pictures on the internet, because most of the very high diversity of species (many 100s of species), the low number of taxonomists and the high number of undescribed species. Also, the fauna of southern Mexico (Chiapas etc.) has almost no overlap with the US fauna, so almost none of the species are going to be on Bugguide. So the only thing left is looking at old literature (e.g. the famous "Biologia Centrali-Americana" http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections... ) and checking museum collections. Based on my experience in one of the largest beetle collections, I think that this one could be either Stegnea (which includes the C American species formerly placed in Crepidodera) or one of the genera formerly included in Lactica. Lactica has been split up in several genera by Jan and Bohumila Bechyne in the 1970ies, so that's not making it any easier...
Spotted on Aug 22, 2015
Submitted on Feb 19, 2016
