Biodiversity Data Journal : Taxonomic paper
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First report of the genus Conostigmus Dahlbom (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea: Megaspilidae) from India with description of a new species
Corresponding author: C Bijoy (bejoyaaryan@gmail.com)
Academic editor: Lyubomir Penev
Received: 30 Aug 2013 | Accepted: 26 Dec 2013 | Published: 02 Jan 2014
© 2014 C Bijoy, K Rajmohana, Ramesh Kumar.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Bijoy C, Rajmohana K, Kumar R (2014) First report of the genus Conostigmus Dahlbom (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea: Megaspilidae) from India with description of a new species. Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e991. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e991
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The genus Conostigmus Dahlbom (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea: Megaspilidae) is reported for the first time from India, along with description and illustration of C. neotubifer sp. n. A comparative discussion on the morphological affinities of the new species with its putative sister C. tubifer Dessart is provided. An intermixing of character states of genera Conostigmus as well as Dendrocerus Ratzeburg is observed.
Conostigmus, Megaspilidae, new species, India
Superfamily Ceraphronoidea (Hymenoptera) comprises two extant families of parasitoid wasps, Ceraphronidae and Megaspilidae (
Among the 13 genera of Megaspilidae, the most speciose and widely distributed are Dendrocerus
In continuation with our pioneer taxonomic studies on the superfamily Ceraphronoidea of India, a new species of Conostigmus viz. C. neotubifer sp. n. is hereby described and illustrated. A comparative discussion on the morphological affinities of the new species with C. tubifer
The specimens under study were collected using malaise trap set among the grassy patches of Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. The specimens were card mounted on point-card tips. Description and imaging works were carried out employing Leica M205A stereomicroscope, with 1 × objective and Leica DFC-500 digital camera. Morphological terminology follows
Both the Holotype and the Paratypes are deposited in the National Zoological Collection at Zoological Survey of India, Calicut.
Abbreviations: DFIm – Minimal Interocular Facial Distance; OOL – Ocellocular Length; POL – Postocellar Length; LOL – Lateral Ocellar Length; T3 – Metasomal tergite 3.
NHM – Natural History Museum, London.
Holotype: Male (
Coloration: Body blackish brown with head more darker; eyes and ocelli silvery with a bronze tinge; fore wing clear at base, with large infuscate area below pterostigma and radial vein extending to its posterior margin; scape, pedicel and A3 brownish yellow turning darker towards segments from A4 onwards; legs brownish yellow with coxae and posterior half of hind tibia blackish brown (
Body: length: 1.52 mm.
Head: (length/width/height: 230/580/460); eye (length/width: 260/210); preoccipital crescent well-separated from posterior ocelli merging laterally into eye margin (
Antenna: (
Mesosoma: (length/width/height: 610/450/460); mesosoma robust with very angular shoulders; alutaceous in sculpture; mesoscutum: (length/width: 230/440); mesoscutum nearly 2 × wider than long; lateral margin of mesoscutum posterior to anterior margin of notaulus convex; coarsely foveolate notaulices curve smoothly and converging posteriorly, meeting median furrow at transscutal articulation (
Forewing: (
Metasoma: (
Body length 1.68 mm. Body colouration and the morphological features of head, mesosoma and metasoma are the same as holotype, except the measurements of antennal segments, proportion of radius and pterostigma and length of metasoma.
Scape more than 4 × as long as wide and A3 more than 3 × as long as wide. Pedicel slender to succeeding antennal segments. Length/width measurements of antennal segments: scape (321/73), pedicel (103/51), A3 (170/51), A4 (97/65), A5 (86/79), A6 (83/90), A7 (90/87), A8 (79/84), A9 (80/85), A10 (87/78), A11 (124/68).
DFIm 52% of head width and fore wing infuscation much darker compared to paler infuscation in male fore wing. T3 occupying 57% of metasomal length.
Conostigmus neotubifer sp. n. can be diagnosed by the following features.
Head transverse, wider than mesosoma. Male antenna subequal to body length with A3 highly slender, 4.8 × as long as wide and subequal to scape. Flagellar segments in male quasi cylindrical with very slight serrations basally. Female antenna with scape more than 4 × as long as wide and A3 more than 3 × as long as wide. Ocellar triangle isosceles, narrow based, short and raised in both sexes. Facial sulcus extending to intertorular carina in both sexes. Preoccipital furrow distinct. Supraclypeal furrow absent. DFIm 0.57% of head width in male and 0.52% of head width in female. Eyes densely pubescent. Dorsal margin of propodeal foramen ‘U’ shaped in dorsal view; median propodeal projection absent. Sternaulus absent. Metasoma dorsally elevated from the propodeal axis. Forewing infuscus, darker in female and paler in male.
The species is named 'neotubifer', since this species resembles Conostigmus tubifer ('Neo' in Latin = 'new').
INDIA, Andaman Nicobar island, Port Blair.
Unknown.
The proposed new species is placed under Conostigmus, since its putative sister C. tubifer belongs also to Conostigmus and can be justified mainly by the presence of independent parossiculi in male genitalia, one of the diagnostic characters for the subgenus Conostigmus s.str. in
Characters for distinguishing Conostigmus and Dendrocerus.
Characters |
Conostigmus |
Dendrocerus |
C. neotubifer sp. n. |
C. tubifer |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ocellar triangle |
Usually with narrow base |
Usually with broad base |
Conostigmus |
Dendrocerus |
Shape of head |
Usually globular |
Usually transverse |
Dendrocerus |
Dendrocerus |
Intertorular carina |
Complete and with a median projection |
Complete or incomplete but without a median projection |
Conostigmus |
Conostigmus |
Notauli |
Smoothly curved towards anterior angles of mesoscutum |
Sharply angulate towards anterior angles of mesoscutum |
Conostigmus |
Conostigmus |
Mesoscutum |
Anteriorly narrowed |
Quadrate |
Dendrocerus |
Dendrocerus |
Basal antennal segments of male |
Cylindrical |
Serrate, triangular, ramose or quasi cylindrical |
Quasi cylindrical as in Dendrocerus |
Quasi cylindrical as in Dendrocerus |
Shape of scutellum |
Flat |
Convex or raised |
Conostigmus |
Conostigmus |
Parossiculi |
Independent |
Fused |
Conostigmus |
Conostigmus |
In C. neotubifer sp. n., OOL > POL (ocellar triangle is narrow based), while in C. tubifer OOL < POL (ocellar triangle is broad based). It needs special mention that the illustration No. 94, in page 87 and the description of C. tubifer in
In addition, the differences in the following characters also ensure that tubifer and neotubifer are not conspecific.
The authors are grateful to the Director of the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata and the Officer-in-Charge, ZSI, Western Ghat Regional Centre, Calicut, Kerala, for providing facilities and encouragement. Thanks are also due to Istvan Miko for his valuable help in interpreting the generic limits of Conostigmus and Dendrocerus and also for literature support. We are grateful to David Notton, for checking the availability of the types at the Natural History Museum, London. The authors profusely thank Dr. J Poorani, for sharing specimens for this study.
Bijoy C: Identification, species concept and imaging
Rajmohana K: Identification and species concept
Ramesh Kumar: Specimen collection and manuscript preparation