Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica can be found in the east­ern half of North Amer­ica, in the Nearc­tic re­gion. In Canada, spec­i­mens have oc­ca­sion­ally been spot­ted as far west as British Co­lum­bia. (Robert­son, 1966)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica is found on dog­wood plants in tem­per­ate forests. In areas where there is an abun­dance of dog­wood, C. philadel­ph­ica can be found form­ing small colonies. This chrysomelid bee­tle has also been found on wil­low plants in areas where dog­wood and wil­low are pre­sent to­gether. (Robert­son, 1966)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

• Other Habitat Features
• suburban

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

All Cal­ligrapha share com­mon fea­tures such as an oval, rounded form, an un­jointed ter­mi­nal tarsal joint with­out teeth un­der­neath, and di­ver­gent claws. Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica has white ely­tra with dark mark­ings arranged in a pat­tern of longer lines, smaller curv­ing lines, and dots which are de­scribed in its Latin name mean­ing "beau­ti­ful + writ­ing." C. philadel­ph­ica is usu­ally 8 to 9 mm in length. It has ely­tra with a thin sub­su­tural line. The body of this bee­tle is ro­bust, con­vex, and shiny. The aedea­gus of the male C. philadel­ph­ica has lat­eral api­cal spi­culi and does not have an api­cal trun­cate pro­jec­tion. Egg col­oration of C. philadel­ph­ica varies from creamy white to coral. (Ar­nett, 1960; Blatch­ley, 1910; Jaques, 1971)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

• Range length

  8 to 9 mm

  0.31 to 0.35 in

De­vel­op­ment

Adults hi­ber­nate dur­ing the win­ter in the ground or shel­tered within the bark of trees. Upon the ar­rival of spring, mat­ing and ovipo­si­tion occur dur­ing which sin­gle or mul­ti­ple eggs can be laid. Ap­prox­i­mately a week after ovipo­si­tion oc­curs in May or June, larva emerge, feed quickly, and pu­pate shortly there­after in the soil. Adults emerge around early July and feed until late Sep­tem­ber. They then over­win­ter until the fol­low­ing spring. (Robert­son, 1966)

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis
• diapause

Re­pro­duc­tion

As a chrysomelid, Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica can likely find host plants to feed on due to chem­i­cal senses and cues. This sug­gests that C. philadel­ph­ica uses these same chem­i­cals or scents to find mates. Both males and fe­males have been ob­served to mate with other species, C. rowena and C. vic­ina. (Robert­son, 1966; Mitchell, 1988; Robert­son, 1966)

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica uti­lizes diploid bi­sex­ual re­pro­duc­tion. Eggs are laid ei­ther singly or in masses of up to 32 eggs. Over the course of a sea­son, a fe­male can lay be­tween 100 and 450 eggs. Most eggs are gen­er­ally de­posited be­fore June. Cal­ligrapha is highly vari­able in terms of intra and in­ter-spe­cific sex ratio. In some sim­i­lar species, fe­male-pro­duc­ing partheno­gen­e­sis may occur, in­di­cated by the high ratio of fe­males to males. In past col­lec­tions of C. philadel­ph­ica, fe­males have made up 50% to 100% of the col­lec­tion, sug­gest­ing this species may also be parthenogenic. (Robert­son, 1966)

Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica is a bi­sex­ual diploid. Lit­tle study has fo­cused on iden­ti­fy­ing whether cer­tain species of Cal­ligrapha are sis­ter species. C. philadel­ph­ica will mate with other species, C. rowena and C. vic­ina (which uti­lizes tetraploid partheno­gen­e­sis). A pop­u­la­tion of C. philadel­ph­ica has been known to mate with an­other pop­u­la­tion dif­fer­ing only in su­per­nu­mer­ary chro­mo­somes. Robert­son (1966) finds that there is vari­a­tion in whether or not the sper­mato­go­nial com­ple­ment of C. philadel­ph­ica con­tained su­per­nu­mer­ary chro­mo­somes. Vari­a­tion of the su­per­nu­mer­ary chro­mo­somes within the study ranged from 0 to 10 in Ot­tawa, Canada, whereas in Que­bec the study found that sper­mato­go­nial com­ple­ments con­tained 22 au­to­somes, one X chro­mo­some, and an av­er­age of seven su­per­nu­mer­ary chro­mo­somes. This poly­mor­phism may be an adap­ta­tion that helps pop­u­la­tions sur­vive and is an in­di­ca­tor of po­ten­tial spe­ci­a­tion. (Robert­son, 1966)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• parthenogenic
• sexual
• fertilization
  • internal
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  There is a single generation of Calligrapha philadelphica each year.

• Breeding season

  Oviposition occurs in the middle of May and continues through June.

• Range eggs per season

  100 to 450

Other than pro­vi­sion­ing of eggs, there is no parental in­volve­ment in this species.

• Parental Investment
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

It takes ap­prox­i­mately 2 to 3 months for C. philadel­ph­ica to de­velop from an egg to an adult. After emerg­ing from pu­pa­tion, adults con­tinue to feed for an­other 2 to 3 months until over­win­ter­ing and emerg­ing again the fol­low­ing spring. (Robert­son, 1966)

Be­hav­ior

Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica will amass in small colonies in areas where there is an abun­dance of the host dog­wood plants. Oth­er­wise it is a soli­tary species. C. philadel­ph­ica can fly, though it does not fly far from the patches of dog­wood that it in­hab­its. (Robert­son, 1966)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• motile
• sedentary
• hibernation
• solitary

Home Range

Dog­wood, the host plant of Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica, has an ex­pan­sive range in North Amer­ica and there­fore C. philadel­ph­ica is also widely dis­persed through­out the east­ern half of the United States. In­di­vid­u­als stay mainly within a patch of host plant. (Jaques, 1971; Robert­son, 1966)

Dog­wood, the host plant of Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica, has an large range in North Amer­ica. Since C. philadel­ph­ica lives and feeds on dog­wood, it is also found through­out the east­ern half of the United States. These bee­tles stay mainly within a patch of dog­wood plant. (Jaques, 1971; Robert­son, 1966)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica, as a chrysomelid, can most likely rec­og­nize host plants via vi­sual acu­ity and chem­i­cal cues. It can per­ceive both the en­vi­ron­ment and other mem­bers of the species (as well as sim­i­lar species) vi­su­ally and chem­i­cally. (Mitchell, 1988)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• chemical

Food Habits

Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica feeds on the leaves of dog­wood plants, Cor­nus stolonifera and Cor­nus obli­qua. (Robert­son, 1966)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • folivore

• Plant Foods
• leaves

Pre­da­tion

No in­for­ma­tion is avail­able on this topic.

Ecosys­tem Roles

Chrysomel­i­dae, in­clud­ing C. philadel­ph­ica are im­por­tant phy­tophagous bee­tles which are host-spe­cific in ter­res­trial habi­tats and mod­ify their ecosys­tems in a host-spe­cific way. C. philadel­ph­ica specif­i­cally ef­fects the pop­u­la­tion of dog­wood plants, Cor­nus stolonifera and Cor­nus obli­qua, as the bee­tles de­vour the plant leaves. (Robert­son, 1966)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

There are no known pos­i­tive ef­fects of Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica on hu­mans.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse af­fects of Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Cal­ligrapha philadel­ph­ica has no spe­cial con­ser­va­tion sta­tus.

• IUCN Red List

  Not Evaluated

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Rachael Gin­gerich (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan Bi­o­log­i­cal Sta­tion, An­gela Miner (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web Staff, Brian Scholtens (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan Bi­o­log­i­cal Sta­tion.

Ref­er­ences

Ar­nett, R. 1960. The bee­tles of the United States. Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: The Catholic Uni­ver­sity of Amer­ica Press.

Blatch­ley, W. 1910. Cat­a­logue of the Coleoptera of In­di­ana. In­di­anapo­lis, In­di­ana: WM. B. Bur­ford, Con­trac­tor for State Pub­lish­ing and Print­ing.

Dick­in­son, J. 1997. Mul­ti­ple mat­ing, sperm com­pe­ti­tion, and cryp­tic fe­male choice in the leaf bee­tles. Pp. 164-183 in J Choe, B Crespi, eds. The Evo­lu­tion of mat­ing sys­tems in in­sects and arach­nids. Cam­bridge, United King­dom: The Press Syn­di­cate of the Uni­ver­sity of Cam­bridge.

Jaques, H. 1971. How to know the bee­tles. United States of Amer­ica: WM. C. Brown Com­pany Pub­lish­ers.

Mitchell, B. 1988. Adult leaf bee­tles as mod­els for ex­plor­ing the chem­i­cal basis of host-plant recog­ni­tion. In­sect Phys­i­ol­ogy, 34: 213-225.

Robert­son, J. 1966. The chro­mo­somes of bi­sex­ual and partheno­genetic species of Cal­ligrapha (Coleoptera: Chrysomel­i­dae) with notes on sex ratio, abun­dance and egg num­ber. Cana­dian Jour­nal of Ge­net­ics and Cy­tol­ogy, 8: 695-732.