Chrysis crossi Rosa, 2023

Rosa, Paolo, Wood, Thomas, Silva, Teresa Luisa L., Verissimo, Joana, Mata, Vanessa A., Michez, Denis, Beja, Pedro & Ferreira, Sonia, 2023, The InBIO Barcoding Initiative Database: contribution to the knowledge on DNA barcodes of cuckoo wasps, with the description of new species from the Iberian Peninsula (Hymenoptera, Chrysididae), Biodiversity Data Journal 11, pp. 98743-98743 : 98743

Chrysis crossi Rosa sp. n.

Materials

Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: INV12727 ; recordNumber: INV12727 ; recordedBy: I. C. Cross; individualID: INV12727 ; individualCount: 1; sex: F; lifeStage: Adult ; otherCatalogNumbers: IBIHM1128-22; occurrenceID: 6CF2BF38-8154-53D2-AB88-640F8CDD5821; Taxon : phylum: Arthropoda ; class: Insecta ; order: Hymenoptera ; family: Chrysididae ; genus: Chrysis ; specificEpithet: crossi; Location : country: Portugal; locality: Salema ; decimalLatitude: 37.06; decimalLongitude: -8.83; Identification : identifiedBy: Paolo Rosa ; Event : year: 2017; month: 4; day: 16; Record Level: institutionCode: Universite de Mons Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: recordedBy: J. Smit (JSC); individualCount: 1; sex: M; lifeStage: Adult; occurrenceID: 9849F20C-7561-5544-B4E2-430469C8A89F; Taxon: phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; family: Chrysididae; genus: Chrysis; specificEpithet: crossi; Location: country: Portugal; locality: 3 km N Mexilhoeira Grande, Poio ; decimalLatitude: 37.2; decimalLongitude: -8.6; Identification: identifiedBy: Paolo Rosa; Event: year: 2005; month: 4; day: 30 Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: recordedBy: M. & E. Howe (PRC); individualCount: 2; sex: M; lifeStage: Adult; occurrenceID: 01CC81B6-FEC3-5EBD-B89E-B7195661A 5AD; Taxon: phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; family: Chrysididae; genus: Chrysis; specificEpithet: crossi; Location: country: Portugal; locality: Carrapateira, Praia da Bordeira ; decimalLatitude: 37.2; decimalLongitude: -8.9; Identification: identifiedBy: Paolo Rosa; Event: year: 2006; month: 4; day: 16 Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: recordedBy: I.C. Cross (ICC); individualCount: 1; sex: M; lifeStage: Adult; occurrenceID: 92FDD0A6-54DE-5166-B4DF-372F55037E84; Taxon: phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; family: Chrysididae; genus: Chrysis; specificEpithet: crossi; Location: country: Portugal; locality: Carrapateira ; decimalLatitude: 37.2; decimalLongitude: -8.9; Identification: identifiedBy: Paolo Rosa; Event: year: 2016; month: 4; day: 26 Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: recordedBy: P. Rosa & M. Jacobs; individualCount: 1; sex: M; lifeStage: Adult; occurrenceID: 66AAAE02-1293-52EB-8267-4DBC53119F00; Taxon: phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; family: Chrysididae; genus: Chrysis; specificEpithet: crossi; Location: country: Portugal; locality: Estoi ; decimalLatitude: 37.1; decimalLongitude: -7.9; Identification: identifiedBy: Paolo Rosa; Event: year: 2019; month: 5; day: 4 Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: recordedBy: P. Rosa & M. Jacobs (MJC); individualCount: 2; sex: M; lifeStage: Adult; occurrenceID: 23B773FC-C44D-5C19-AE88-3CB26CCF3BA4; Taxon: phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; family: Chrysididae; genus: Chrysis; specificEpithet: crossi; Location: country: Portugal; municipality: Faro; locality: Montenegro ; decimalLatitude: 37.0; decimalLongitude: -7.9; Identification: identifiedBy: Paolo Rosa; Event: year: 2019; month: 5; day: 9 Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: recordedBy: M. Jacobs (MJC); individualCount: 6; sex: 5 M, 1 F; lifeStage: Adult ; occurrenceID: 4A481E5E-5CD0-5D06-A882-CA7D5B027CEC; Taxon : phylum: Arthropoda ; class: Insecta ; order: Hymenoptera ; family: Chrysididae ; genus: Chrysis ; specificEpithet: crossi; Location : country: Portugal; locality: Rocha ; decimalLatitude: 37.1; decimalLongitude: -8.5; Identification : identifiedBy: Paolo Rosa; Event: year: 2021; month: 5; day: 26

Description

Female. Body length (holotype) 5.0 mm. Forewing length 3.5 mm.

Head. Vertex and frons with small, contiguous punctures (from 0.2 × to 0.3 × MOD) and polished interspaces below brow; transverse frontal carina faint; scapal basin medially transversally microridged, laterally with small punctures increasing diameter towards eye (Fig. 7 D); malar spaces densely punctate, elongate (1.7 × MOD), shorter than first flagellomere (2.0 × MOD) and with short dense, silver setae; genal carina fully developed to mandibular insertion; clypeus mostly polished, sparsely punctate along anterior margin; clypeus elongate, subantennal area 1.7 MOD; medially notched and apically thickened. First flagellomere elongate, l/w = 4 (width taken at base of flagellomere). OOL 1.4 × MOD; POL 2.0 × MOD; MS 1.7 × MOD; relative length of P:F1:F2:F3 = 1.0:1.6:0.9:0.7.

Mesosoma. Medial pronotal line narrow and short, reaching half pronotal length; pronotum antero-laterally slightly bulging (Fig. 7 ); pronotal punctation double and interspaces polished with sparse minute dots; notaulus basally formed by small subrectangular foveae becoming smaller and rounded at apex; parapsidal signum as a linear depression; mesoscutellum dense puncture and irregular interspaces, antero-medially corrugated and becoming polished towards base; scrobal sulcus of mesopleuron formed by large foveae aligned, limited to upper half; episternal sulcus formed by large and irregular, subsquare foveae; punctation with dots on interspaces and larger punctures on mesepisterum; scutellar-metanotal suture deep and wide; metanotum with contiguous punctures, larger than other punctures on mesosoma; posterior propodeal projections slightly divergent; wing venation unmodified.

Metasoma. First tergum double punctate, with large punctures separated by small punctures on interspaces; second and third tergum double punctate, larger punctures smaller than those on first tergum; punctures on metasomal separated by polished interspaces (Fig. 7 B, Fig. 7 F); pit row composed by small, deep pits, apical margin of third tergum continuous, dark blue, medially arcuate; black spots of the second sternum large, covering almost all segment length, reaching median line.

Colouration. Head and mesosoma dark blue, pronotum and lateral areas of mesoscutum flame red, scutellum with light blue highlights; metasoma red to purplish, apical margin of third tergum blue. Scape, pedicel and first tergum black with weak greenish-metallic lustre, rest of flagellum black; tegula blue; metasomal venter black, with only a narrow blue thin line between the black spots and the apical margin of the second sternum. Legs blue, tarsi dark brown.

Male. Body length 5.0-6.0 mm. Similar to female in shape, sculpture and colouration. Malar space slightly shorter, scapal basin laterally covered by short, dense, appressed and silvery pubescence; blue segments of mesososoma with greenish reflection, propodeum and propodeal angles dorsally green to golden green; brown. Male genital capsule (Fig. 8 A) with inner margin of the gonocoxa straight.

Diagnosis

Medium-sized, slender species (5-6 mm); head and mesosoma blue, pronotum and lateral areas of mesoscutum red; mesosoma dorsally red to purple, apical margin of third tergum blue; metasoma ventrally black, black spots on second sternum large, covering almost all surface and touching mid-line, without being clearly fused with each other; narrow stripe on apical margin of second tergum blue. Metasoma punctation double, dense, with polished interspaces between the large and small punctures. Chrysis crossi sp. nov. is chromatically and morphologically similar to C. phryne Abeille de Perrin, 1878, but it is clearly separated genetically (see below). The main diagnostic characters to separate both sexes from C. phryne is the punctation, which consists of distinct double punctures on the metasomal scutum, these being separated by polished interspaces (Fig. 7 E, Fig. 9 A), whereas in C. phryne , the punctation is even and dense, without polished spaces. The metasomal venter is black in both sexes; black spots on second sternum large, covering almost all surface and touching mid-line with a narrow blue line between the black spots and the apical margin of the segment; in C. phryne , the sternum is clearly metallic green to golden green, with black spots distinctly separate from mid-line. The male genital capsule of the two species is different (Fig. 8 ) being narrower and more slender in C. crossi sp. nov., with the inner margin of the gonocoxa straight. Male can be also recognised by their brown tarsi, which are pale to yellowish in C. phryne .

Genetics

Chrysis crossi is very distinct genetically, being separated from an Italian specimen of C. phryne by 8.51%. There are no other specimens separated by less than a genetic distance of 10.0%.

Etymology

The specific epithet Chrysis crossi (masculine) is dedicated to Ian Cross (Dorchester, Dorset, UK) for his active research on Portuguese Hymenoptera , including cuckoo wasps, many specimens of which were used for the current InBIO Barcoding Initiative work.

Distribution

Portugal (Algarve).

Ecology

Label information from Ian Cross reports that a male specimen was collected at an aggregation of Melitturga caudata Pérez, 1879 ( Andrenidae ), on the sand near empty snail shells. Chrysis phryne has been reported to attack Osmia (Allosmia) melanura Morawitz, 1871 (see Pauli et al. (2019)), but this cannot be the typical host across much of its range as, in Europe, O. melanura is restricted to southern Italy, North Macedonia and southern Ukraine ( Müller 2022). It is likely that a different snail shell-nesting O. (Allosmia) is used instead, all known species of O. (Allosmia) using this nesting substrate. The likely host is O. (Allosmia) rufohirta Latreille, 1811 which is widely distributed across Europe and is the only O. (Allosmia) known from Portugal ( Müller 2022), being common in the Algarve ( Baldock et al. 2018). We suggest that O. rufohirta is the likely host of C. crossi , though this must be confirmed through direct observations.

Notes

According to Linsenmaier (1959), the Chrysis phryne group includes only two species: Chrysis circe Mocsáry, 1889 and C. phryne Abeille de Perrin, 1878, with three subspecies C. phryne s.str., C. phryne hebraeica Linsenmaier, 1959 and C. phryne burgenlandia Linsenmaier, 1968. The types of these subspecies have been examined and C. hebraeica stat. nov. has to be considered to be a distinct species, based on morphological analyses, as it displays greater morphological differences from C. phryne s.str. than C. crossi . Comments on the specific status of C. phryne burgenlandia (known from Austria to Greece) should be postponed until genetic sequences are available, because the main diagnostic characters are based on body colouration only.

Finally, Mocsáry (1889) described Chrysis destefanii , based on the description of a specimen collected in Sicily by De Stefani-Perez and identified as C. candens by du Buysson (1888). The type of Chrysis destefanii is currently considered to be lost, as is large part of De Stefani’s collection ( Romano 2006). Chrysis destefanii was considered to be a synonym of C. phryne by Linsenmaier (1959) and Kimsey and Bohart (1991). Strumia and Yildirim (2009) identified a specimen from Turkey as Chrysis destefanii , yet this record may be related to Chrysis hebraeica or to an undescribed species of the similar rubricata group that has already been observed in the Middle East (PR, unpublished data). Based on the descriptions by du Buysson (1888) and Mocsáry (1889) and, in particular, on the detail on the punctation of the second tergum " régulière formée de points égaux, assez serrés ", the synonymy between Chrysis destefanii and C. crossi is excluded and De Stefani’s specimen would appear to be conspecific with C. phryne . Since the type of Chrysis destefanii is lost, we treat C. destefani as nomen Chrysis dubium , until such a point that molecular data are available for Sicilian specimens.

Figures

Figure 7. Chrysis crossi Rosa, sp. nov., female, holotype. A habitus, lateral view; B habitus, dorsal view; C head and mesosoma, dorsal view; D head, frontal view; E metasoma, postero-lateral view; F metasoma, dorsal view. Scale bar: 1 mm.

Figure 8. Chrysis crossi Rosa, sp. nov. A male (Ph.: © M. Jacobs); B female (Ph.: © M. Jacobs); C collecting site of Chrysis crossi with Maarten Jacobs; D Male genital capsule; E Male genital capsule of Chrysis phryne from Italy (Emilia-Romagna, Oriano).

Figure 9. A-B metasoma, dorsal view: A Chrysis crossi Rosa, sp. nov., male, paratype; B Chrysis phryne male, from Italy (Emilia-Romagna, Oriano); C-D metasoma, ventral view; C Chrysis crossi Rosa, sp., nov., male, paratype; D Chrysis phryne male, from Italy (Emilia-Romagna, Oriano).