News of Biology in the Southeast 
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Florida endemic. These photographs were vouchered as hardcopy prints in the 
McGuire Center and FSCA, the electronic digital versions were vouchered with 
MorphoBank (http://www.morphobank.org/permalink/7P876), and the study 
published in 2013. Moreover, FSCA houses all three of the only known 
specimens of Say’s Flangingfly, Bittacus stigmaterus, from Florida and the only 
known specimen of the Oconee Scorpionfly, Panorpa oconee, discovered in 
Florida. Although FSCA contains a worldwide collection of mecopterans from five 
continents—Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Australia—there is a 
significant representation of specimens from Florida and the Great Smokey 
Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. To date, 22 publications by a 
variety of authors have been generated from the Collection between the years 
2005 and 2013. 
Donations and gifted specimens from 2004 through 2013, representing 
the families Boreidae, Meropeidae, Panorpodidae, Bittacidae and Panorpidae, 
have expanded the Collection by more than 1000 additional specimens 
(http://www.fsca-dpi.org/OverviewFrame.htm). Important recent donors and 
collectors include David T. Almquist, Wesley J. Bicha, William L. Grogan, Jr., 
John B. Fleppner, Peter W. Kovarik, Craig M. Brabant, Edward Coher, David P. 
Cowan, Bruce A. Harrison, Joshua R. Jones, Joseph E. Eger, John M. 
Leavengood, Jr., William Mauffrey, Howard Romack, Scott R. Shaw, Zell Smith, 
Paul E. Skelley, Lionel A. Stange, Gary J. Steck, Bruce D. Sutton, Nadeer N. 
Youssef, James R. Wiley, Allan Wills; and the late entomologists Alistair S. 
Ramsdale, Charles Porter, and Howard V. Weems, Jr. Additionally, important 
meropeids were gifted to FSCA from the Virginia Museum of Natural History, the 
National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution), and the McGuire 
Center. We are fortunate to have received all donated and gifted mecopterans 
and encourage others to contribute to this important southeastern collection. 
We are currently conducting research on hypothetically primitive mecopteran 
species, such as Merope tuber and the Australian Earwigfly, Austromerope 
poultoni. This involves actively obtaining new M. tuber distributional records, 
biogeographical information, and life history data. The Collection currently holds 
over 300 adult M. tuber specimens from 16 states located throughout eastern 
North America. 
Louis A. Somma, somma@ufl.edu 
James C. Dunford, dunford@ufl.edu 
David Serrano, dserrano@broward.edu 
Research Associates, Florida State Collection of Arthropods 
