Amphibolips palmeri Basset

Cuesta-Porta, Víctor, Equihua-Martínez, Armando, Estrada-Venegas, Edith G., Cibrián-Tovar, David, Barrera-Ruíz, Uriel M., Silva, Salvador Ordaz, Sánchez, Imelda Virginia López, Melika, George & Pujade-Villar, Juli, 2020, Revision of the Amphibolips species of the ‘ nassa’ complex from Mexico and central America (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae), Zootaxa 4877 (1), pp. 1-50 : 23-24

Amphibolips palmeri Basset species dubia

Amphibolips palmeri Basset, 1890: 86 .

The type material is presumably lost (Buffington pers. com.).

This species was described from a single specimen extracted from a gall collected from an unidentified Quercus species by Basset (1890). According to the author, the gall was donated by Mr. B. Pickman Mann and had the following label: “Summit of Sierra Madre, Chihuahua, México. Winter 1885–86, Dr. Edward Palmer”. Beutenmüller (1909) in his revision of the Amphibolips of North America broadened the distribution of this species to Guadalajara (Jalisco, México) for a gall deposited in the American Museum of Natural History, but did not add any new information to the description of the species. Amphibolips palmeri was not mentioned in Kinsey (1937) paper on Amphibolips of México.

In the latest studies on Amphibolips ( Melika et al. 2011; Nieves-Aldrey et al. 2012) as well as in this study, the type material of the species was not found. We provide the original description given Basset (1890) below: “Gallfly – Female. Entire body black. Head: face unevenly wrinkled, vertex and thorax deeply and irregularly wrinkled. Antennae black, very short, 13-jointed, first joint heavy, second joint short, third joint one-half longer than the first and second together, fourth joint one half as long as the third, remaining joints short, last joint a little longer than the twelfth. Mesothorax deeply and irregularly wrinkled with two obscure parallel lines and a line at the base of each wing. Parapsidal grooves faint and scarcely interrupt the rugosity of the surface. Mesoscutellum very coarsely wrinkled and conspicuously broader in the middle than on the anterior side, truncate and emarginate posteriorly; foveae large, rugose with a low irregular line separating them and a high ridge bounding them at the sides, the whole polished and shining. Abdomen black, second segment covering one-half of the whole, anterior half smooth and shining and with a few scattered hairs. The posterior half and the visible parts of the other segments distinctly reticulated or punctate, except a narrow-polished band on the margin of each. Legs black, shining with a few scattered hairs. Wings dark, smoky brown, with a very dark brown cloud covering the areolet and the lower half of the radial area; beyond this and extending across the radial area to almost the posterior margin is a light colourless area and the anterior margin from the dark, broad, first cross-vein to a short distance beyond the second cross-vein is of the same light colour; tip of wing beyond the pale area, dark smoky brown as below this pale area. Areolet very small, but well defined. Radial area open, large and broad. Length 6.5 mm.” Concerning to the gall, it is a large spherical spongious bud gall. Light yellowish brown; the outer shell thin but firm. Internally soft spongious tissue. Larval chamber round embedded in the spongious tissue. Diameter: 35 to 70 mm.

Remarks. According to Melika et al. (2011), this species closely resembles A. dampfi and might well be synonymous. The type (female) of A. palmeri is lost, nevertheless the adults and galls descriptions are consistent. For the moment, this species is considered as species dubia until the type material appears, or new data can be examined.