Andricus confusus Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar, 2019

Lobato-Vila, Irene & Pujade-Villar, Juli, 2019, Revision of world Ceroptresini (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) with the description of a new genus and five new species, Zootaxa 4685 (1), pp. 1-67 : 59-60

Andricus confusus Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar nom. nov. and nom. dub.

Ceroptres niger Fullaway, 1911 . Ann. Ent. Soc. Am. 4: 373 syn. nov. Type material: CAS.

Andricus niger (Fullaway) comb. nov. [Preoccupied by Tavares, 1902].

Type material (examined). LECTOTYPE (♀) with the following labels: ‘L.S.Jr.U. Lot 497, Sub 16’ (white label) / ‘ ♀ ’ (white label, handwritten) / ‘Type’ (red label) / ‘ Ceroptres niger Full. ’ (white label, handwritten) / ‘ California Academy of Sciences, Type No. 5831’ (white label) / ‘ Lectotype ♀ Ceroptres niger Fullaway, 1911 , IL-V desig- 2019’ (red label) / ‘ Andricus confusus Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar , nom. nov., IL-V det. 2019’ (white label).

Distribution. USA. State of California ( Fullaway 1911; Burks 1979).

Biology. Presumably reared from galls of Disholcaspis eldoradensis (Beutenmüller, 1909) on Quercus lobata Née ( Quercus section ) ( Fullaway 1911).

Remarks. According to Burks (1979), the type deposited in CAS is not a Ceroptres , but an undetermined gall maker; after examining the type material of C. niger , we conclude it belongs to Andricus . Different species have been described under the name of Andricus niger , even though A. niger Tavares, 1902 , now a synonym of the sexual generation of A. hispanicus (Hartig, 1856) ( Pujade-Villar et al. 2003a) , is the valid species. Andricus niger (Fourcroy, 1785) is placed under the category of incertae sedis since the original description is very poor, even too inadequate to establish whether it belongs to Andricus ( Kinsey 1930: 451) and its type material is presumably lost (Claire Villemant pers. comm.). Andricus niger Kieffer, 1901 is not an available name as it derives from a variety form of A. luteicornis Kieffer, 1901 ( Pujade-Villar et al. 2000). Lastly, and according to Burks (1979), Callirhytis nigra Fullaway, 1911 was transferred to Andricus by Weld (1944), who changed its name to A. nigridins since A. niger was preoccupied by Tavares, 1902. Previously, Weld (1926) described Diplolepis operta , which subsequently became a synonym of Callirhytis nigra ; thus, since Diplolepis operta was described before Weld transferred Callirhytis nigra to Andricus , the valid name for Callirhytis nigra is not Andricus nigridins , but Andricus opertus ( Burks 1979) .

According to the original description, Ceroptres niger was obtained from galls of Disholcaspis eldoradensis ( Fullaway 1911: 373) , but since C. niger is actually an Andricus , this statement is untenable. In addition, its type material is in poor condition (it lacks wings and antennae, and it is generally very deteriorated), which makes it impossible to assign it to any known species of Andricus . For all of these reasons, we rename Ceroptres niger Fullaway as Andricus confusus Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar nom. nov. and place it as nomen dubium until the genus Andricus is revised in the New World.