Alaptus andersoni Ferrière, 1930

Serguei V. Triapitsyn, 2017, Revision of Alaptus (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) in the Holarctic region, with taxonomic notes on some extralimital species, Zootaxa 4279 (1), pp. 1-92 : 82-83

Alaptus andersoni Ferrière, 1930

( Figs 183, 184)

Alaptus andersoni Ferrière 1930: 41 –42. Type locality: Kabete, Kiambu Co., Kenya. Alaptus andersoni Ferrière : Ghesquière 1939: 35 (compared with A. nowickii ); Soyka 1939b: 31 (list); Debauche 1949: 10 (key), 13–14 (redescription).

Type material examined. Lectotype female [BMNH], here designated to avoid any possible confusion about the identity of this species, on slide ( Fig. 183) labeled: 1. “Kenya Colony. 3. [most likely, illegible] vii.1917. T. J. Anderson.”; 2. “Reared from eggs, coffee leaf”; 3. “ Mymaridae : Alaptus andersoni sp. n. Ch. Ferriere det.”. The lectotype ( Fig. 184) is mounted dorsoventrally under the same coverslip with a female paralectotype; it is in poor condition (shriveled), with flagellum of one antenna and one leg detached. Paralectotypes: the aforementioned female [BMNH] on the lectotype slide (in poor condition, shriveled; detached are both flagella), and also 1 female [BMNH] on point labeled: 1. “Kenya Colony, Kabete, - VII-1917, T. J. Anderson.”; 2. “Reared from eggs coffee leaf”; 3. [yellow circle] “Co-type”; 4. “ Alaptus andersoni sp. n. Ch. Ferriere det” (shriveled, possibly lacking antennae).

Distribution. Afrotropical: Kenya.

Host. Reared from eggs of unidentified Psocoptera on a coffee leaf ( Ferrière 1930). On a separate pin in the BMNH, I found a fragment of a leaf with numerous psocid eggs with exit holes made by the emerged parasitoids (including one badly shriveled non-type A. andersoni stuck to the leaf), with the following labels: 1. “Eggs coffee leaf from which small parasites bred”; 2. “Kenya Colony, Kabete, - VII-1917, T. J. Anderson.”; 3. “Eggs of Psocidae with Alaptus andersoni Ferr. Ch. Ferriere det”.

Comments. This species was described from three syntype females ( Ferrière 1930). Body of the dry-mounted paralectotype is brown to dark brown although the mesosoma of the slide-mounted lectotype is contrastingly lighter (light brown) than the head and metasoma (brown). Alaptus nowickii Ghesquière , which was also reared in tropical Africa from psocid eggs on coffee leaves, has a row of 1 to 6 setae in a median, incomplete row on the fore wing disc. The body length of the lectotype ( Fig. 184) is 324 µm, in which the clava is 3.5× as long as wide, and the ovipositor is about 0.8× length of metatibia.