My name is Mack (Katherine) Arguez and I am a third year Evolutionary Biology PhD student under advisor Dr. Nico Franz at Arizona State University (ASU). I grew up in Miami, Florida until I moved to Gainesville, Florida to continue my undergraduate educational career, receiving my Bachelor of Science in Entomology at the University of Florida. I am a first generation Cuban-American and the first person in my family to continue towards a higher degree at a University. Although I will always love scarabs (they were the first group I worked with in relation to insect taxonomy), my current research has made me come to appreciate the sheer, epic biodiversity within weevils and want to study them more in depth.

I'm continuing work on my doctoral thesis research revising the New World weevil genus Rhyssomatus Schönherr, 1837 (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Molytinae). Currently have completed a diagnostic taxonomic key for the species that occur in Arizona. This key includes lateral, dorsal, and frontal images of all included taxon as well as the first male and female genitalic images taken for these species (edited Z-stacked images and line drawings). In process of expanding aforementioned key to include all North America Rhyssomatus. In preparation for a biogeographic analysis, I have entered more than 4000 specimen vouchers of Rhyssomatus into the online museum database of Ecdysis. Future plans for this project are to possibly extend the taxonomic key to include Canadian, Mexican, and South American fauna.