Macroglenes eximius (Haliday)

Mitroiu, Mircea-Dan, 2010, Revision of the Palearctic species of Macroglenes Westwood (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae), Zootaxa 2563, pp. 1-34 : 16-17

Macroglenes eximius (Haliday)

(Fig. 24)

Pirene eximia Haliday, 1833: 338 .

Macroglenes eximius ; O’Conner et al., 2000: 74.

Diagnosis. Body black, mostly without metallic color, or if present then dark bluish; clypeal margin not incised (cf. Figs 1–2); only F5 large, with sensilla (cf. Fig. 33); mesosoma flattened (cf. Fig. 11); pecten regular, about 3/4 length of hind tibia (cf. Fig. 15); forewing with small bare area between R and apical margin, basal cell with few hairs in distal part; ovipositor sheaths very long, about as long as hind tibia, sometimes slightly shorter or slightly longer (Fig. 24); hypopygium very close to tip of gaster (Fig. 24). Male with eyes normal, scape thin and pecten fully developed (cf. Fig. 16, but somewhat less dense proximally); mesosoma slightly arched.

Material examined. LECTOTYPE (Ψ): IRELAND: ‘green square’, ‘ Lectotype M. de V. G.’, ‘ Pirene eximia Ψ Hal.’, Waterhouse label, ‘B. M. TYPE HYM. 5.3308’ ( BMNH).

Additional material. CZECH REPUBLIC: 1Ψ ‘Džbán s. Rakovníka, BOHEMIA, Bouček 28. 8. 66 ’ ( NMPC). ROMANIA: 2ɗ ‘RO: IS, Barnova, 25. VI. 2005 leg. O. Popovici’, ‘ Macroglenes eximius Hal. ɗ det. M. Mitroiu 2009’ ( MICO). SWITZERLAND: 1Ψ, 3ɗ ‘ CH BE 550 m, Bremgarten, Hoger, 599.4/202.9, 6. vi. 1996, H. Baur’ ( NMBE); 1ɗ idem, ’ 26. 5. 2004 ’, ‘ Macroglenes det. H. Baur 2004 ’ ( NMBE). U.K.: 1Ψ ‘ eximia Hal. sec Type in B. M. Coll.’, ‘red square’, ‘M. de V. Graham BMNH 1983-2’, ‘ Macroglenes eximius (Hal.) ’, ‘5. Salisbury Crescent, Oxford, M. de V. G. 31. 7. 1960, on flower of Marguerite’ ( BMNH);? U.K.: 1Ψ ‘ Pirene chalybea Hal. ’, Waterhouse label ( BMNH); 1ɗ ‘ Pirene chalybea Hal. ’, Waterhouse label, ‘green square’ ( BMNH).

Variation. F5 is always large and provided with sensilla, but distinctly transverse, about 1.5– 2 X as wide as long. The ovipositor sheaths are usually as long as the hind tibia, though sometimes slightly longer or slightly shorter (Fig. 24). I also examined 3 females from Slovakia with body black having only slight, dark metallic reflections, the mesosoma depressed and the hypopygium at the end of gaster. F5 was very transverse, only slightly larger than F4 (a sensillum was observed in only one of the females), and the ovipositor sheaths were distinctly shorter than the length of the hind tibia. Thus, these females might belong to an aberrant form of M. eximius or possibly to some other species. They seem also close to M. caudatus sp. nov., M. varicornis (Haliday) , and M. chalybeus (Haliday) , but do not agree in all characters to any of these. The situation is complicated by the presence in the same sample of two types of males, both having F5 small, almost anelliform. One male agrees most closely to males of M. eximius , whereas the other two with males of M. chalybeus or M. varicornis . Considering the above mentioned observations, I hesitate to assign these specimens to a new species.

Comments. Females can be easily separated from all other species, while males are very similar to those of M. caudatus sp. nov., being separated by the characters given in the key, especially the eye height: scape length ratio. This species appears to be widely distributed in Europe, but rather local and not very abundant.

Distribution. Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, U.K. ( Noyes, 2003); previously unrecorded from Romania.

Hosts. Contarinia nasturtii (Kieffer) ( Herting 1978) ; also associated with Artemisia herba-alba ( Askew et al. 2001) .