Conobius (spicatus) spicatus (Bassett)
Agamic form

Loxaulus spicatus
Loxaulus spicata

GALL.—As described for the genus, distinguished as follows : Color dark reddish brown, weathering dark to black, the old epidermis becoming quite ashy gray ; individual galls up to 9.0 mm. in length and 6.5 mm. in diameter ; the whole cluster up to 28. mm. in diameter.

[Description for the genus, shared with Conobius strues: Woody, seed-like cells densely clustered on stems, the clusters resembling small nubbins of dent corn. Each cell monothalamous, roughly conical, sharply pointed at place of attachment, expanding into a broadened, distinctly flattened top, the top centrally tipped with a small scar, the individual galls mis-shapened, often flattened on the sides because of the pressure within the cluster of galls: each cell covered with a thin, hard-papery epidermis which usually shrivels or becomes fluted, and sometimes flaker off in dried galls.]

HOST. — Quercus grisea (Kinsey coll.). Q. arizonica. Q. oblongifolia. Q. Toumeyi (ace. Weld, 1926 ; possibly more than one species of cynipid involved).

RANGE.—New Mexico: Hillsboro. (Kinsey coll.). Arizona: Whetstone (galls, Q arizonica). Sabino Trail in Santa Catalina Mountains (galls, Q. oblongifolia, Kinsey coll. Also ace. Weld, 1926). Oracle Q. arizonica, Kinsey coll. Also ace. Weld, 1926). Huachuca Mountains, Mule Mountains, Santa Rita Mountains, Patagonia Mountains (ace. Weld, 1926).

Probably restricted to southernmost Arizona and immediately adjacent portions of New Mexico

This species appears to be the only American representative of the complex, though we have galls of other species of the group from a wide area in western Mexico, as far south as Jalisco. The galls of spicatus and strues are hardly distinguishable. Spicatus was originally described as a species of Loxaulus. True Loxaulus, according to my studies, includes the genotypes of Compsodryoxenus. The genus (Mayr, 1881, Gen. gallenbew. Cynip. :9, 12, 33) was monobasic, with Bassett's species mammula as type; but spicatus is not at all closely related to true Loxaulus. Weld (1926, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 68 (10) :45) recognized this error in assigning spicatus to Loxaulus, but made no re-assignment of the species.

- Alfred Kinsey: (1938) New Mexican gall wasps (Hymenoptera, Cynipidae) IV^©