Triraphis davidwahli Sharkey, 2021

Jasso-Martínez, Jovana M., Martínez, Juan José, Aguilar-Velasco, Reina Gabriela & Zaldívar-Riverón, Alejandro, 2024, Four new species of Triraphis Ruthe, 1855 (Braconidae, Rogadinae) from a Mexican tropical dry forest and morphological descriptions of T. bradzlotnicki Sharkey, 2021 and T. davidwahli Sharkey, 2021, European Journal of Taxonomy 917, pp. 50-73 : 67-70

Triraphis davidwahli Sharkey, 2021

Fig. 6

Diagnosis

This is a species with the longest median carina on the propodeum, which is ⅓ of its length (¼ in remaining species). This species runs to T. ornatus in the key provided by Valerio & Shaw (2015); however, it can be distinguished from this species by the brown surrounding areas of the mesoscutal lobes, scutellum and dorsal portion of the metasoma (completely dark in T. ornatus ) and for the color of metasoma, which is yellow in T. davidwahli and dark brown in T. ornatus . The color pattern of the Mexican specimen assigned to T. davidwahli ( Fig. 6A ) is mostly similar to the holotype based on the photograph included in the original description of the species ( Fig. 6B ).

Material used for morphological description

MEXICO • ♀; Jalisco, Chamela Biological Station UNAM , near lab, Cham60; 19.49858° N, 105.04417° W; 92 m a.s.l.; 29–30 Mar. 2010; A. Zaldívar and V. Salinas leg.; light trap; DNA voucher no. CNIN1083 ; GenBank accession no. OQ868189 ; CNIN-IBUNAM .

Description

Female

MEASUREMENTS. Body length 4.8 mm; fore wing length 3.9 mm; ovipositor 1.1 mm.

COLOR. Head light brown, body pale yellow to yellow, eyes silverfish brown, ocelli with a wide whitish yellow line around edges, area surrounding ocelli dark brown to black; mandibles yellow, teeth brown; scape, pedicel and first flagellomere brown, remaining flagellomeres yellow, apical twelve flagellomeres turning brown to dark brown. Dorsal part of pronotum, lateral areas of median and lateral mesoscutal lobes, metanotum, propodeum, basal part of mesopleuron, median area of metapleuron, ventral part of hind coxa and portion of hind femur near the insertion with tibia brown; fifth tarsus and tarsal claws brown; wings hyaline, fore wing with an infuscate median area; pterostigma brown, pale yellow on the edges; veins brown to dark brown. Ovipositor and ovipositor sheaths honey yellow.

HEAD. Head 1.8 times wider than its median length (dorsal view); distance between basal edges of tentorial pits and the basal area of toruli 0.8 times maximum width of face measured at dorsal edge of clypeus; width of oral opening 1.3 times height of oral opening. Vertex, temple, and gena smooth-slightly colliculate; frons smooth-colliculate, slightly strigate near toruli; face transversally striate, with a median longitudinal swollen area and sparsely long setae; clypeus smooth-colliculate; malar suture present. One broken antenna with 11 flagellomeres; complete antenna with 42 flagellomeres, first flagellomere 2.0 times longer than wide, almost as long as second flagellomere; eye 1.6 times higher than broad; malar space 0.17 times height of eye; face width about 0.77 times height of eye, and almost as long as height of face and clypeus combined; occipital carina complete, dorsally almost indistinct; median ocellus as big as lateral ocelli; ocellus-eye distance about 0.5 lateral ocellus width.

MESOSOMA. Length of mesosoma 1.9 times its maximum width (dorsal view), 1.5 times its maximum height (lateral view); pronotal groove wide apically, smooth and scrobiculate; propleuron coriaceous; median and lateral mesoscutal lobes smooth-colicullate; notauli wide, scrobiculate, not meeting, finishing before the end of mesocutum in a longitudinally striate area; medial pit obscured by sculpture; scutellar sulcus smooth with one longitudinal carina; scutellar disc subtriangular, smooth-colliculate, mesopleuron mostly smooth, transversally costate dorso-laterally; precoxal sulcus wide, deep and scrobiculate, running along two thirds of mesopleuron; metapleuron coriaceous surrounded by a scrobiculate area, with a distinct, posterior tubercle; propodeum coriaceous basally, remaining area aerolate-rugose with coriaceous sculpture, median carina ⅓ of propodeum length.

LEGS. Hind coxa 1.5 times longer than wide. Length of hind femur 4.3 times its maximum width. Hind tibia almost 2.0 times longer than hind basitarsus. Length of hind basitarsus 0.7 times combined length of second to fifth tarsal segments. Second, third, fourth and fifth tarsal segments 0.5, 0.4, 0.25 and 0.4 times as long as basitarsus. Tarsal claws with a basal, pointed lobe, followed by sharp spines.

WINGS. Fore wing length about 3.0 times its maximum width; pterostigma 4.0 times longer than wide; vein lCUb almost as long as vein RS+Ma; vein 3RSa 0.6 times vein 3RSb, 2.3 times vein r; angle at union 2RS and 2M wide. Hind wing length 5.3 times its maximum width; vein M+CU as long as vein 1M and 2.5 times vein r-m; vein 1A 2.4 times vein cu-a.

METASOMA.Almost as long as head and mesosoma combined. First tergite almost as long as its maximum width; maximum width about 2.0 times its basal width; longitudinally costate with coriaceous sculpture between rugae, with a longitudinal median carina running along its entire length. Length of second tergite 0.8 times its maximum width, 1.7 times length of third tergite, longitudinally costate with coriaceous sculpture between rugae. Third tergite longitudinally costulate with coriaceous sculpture between rugae on basal ¾, remaining tergites coriaceous. Ovipositor about 0.5 times as long as metasoma.

Distribution

This species occurs in Costa Rica and Mexico, but probably also in Belize (voucher BMNHE897830) and French Guiana (voucher CCDB-07375 D01) since they have the same BIN on the BOLDSYSTEMS database.

Comments

The holotype of this species is deposited in the Canadian National Collection (CNC; BIN AAM 9598 in the BOLDSYSTEMS database). Some paratypes from Costa Rica were reared from Panthiades bitias Cramer, 1777 ( Lycaenidae ).

Figures

Fig. 6. Triraphis davidwahliSharkey, 2021. A. Lateral habitus of a Mexican specimen (CNIN-IBUNAM). B. Lateral habitus of female holotype from Costa Rica in Sharkey et al. (2021a) (CNC).