Cynips (dugèsi) spinalis, new species
agamic form

GALL.-Similar to all galls of the C. bella and C. dugèsi complexes. Mature galls very light olive tan, less often rosy, unspotted, smooth, shining, often bluish puberulent, rather small, up to 16. mm., averaging near 13. mm. in diameter.

HOST.-Quercus texcocama [deserticola]

RANGE.-Morelos: Cuernavaca, 8 N, 8700' (types). Probably restricted to the western slopes of the mountains which separate the Valley of Mexico from the valleys of Morelos. Figure 18.

LIFE HISTORY.—Galls: Still fresh and succulent, January 7. Adults: January 25.

This long-spined insect is very close to C. spinifera of the adjacent state of Michoacán, matching it in its long spine, smooth mesopleuron, and olive tan galls. In all these characters it differs from the otherwise very similar species, spadix, in Guerrero. The three species must be segregates of the same stock, spinalis and spinifera being closer than either is to spadix.

Our collections of spinalis were made on the Mexico City Acapulco road on the mountain slopes above the city of Cuerna vaca. This was only a few miles—perhaps not 8 or 10—from a locality from which we collected the very different insect, C. spiculi, on the eastern slopes of the same mountain overlooking the Valley of Mexico. The two localities, however, are separated by a high divide, at about 10,500 feet, to which white oaks do not ascend, and spiculi and spinalis are thus effectually isolated. In our study of Cynipidae we have found no other area in which so many narrow-ranging species are as effectively isolated as in the high mountain and sub-tropic valley country of the Mexican Cordillera.

- Alfred Kinsey: (1936) Origin of higher categories in Cynips^©