Synergus stelluli Burnett, 1976

Lobato-Vila, Irene, Equihua-Martínez, Armando, Estrada-Venegas, Edith G., Cibrián-Tovar, David, Barrera-Ruíz, Uriel M. & Pujade-Villar, Juli, 2020, Synergus Hartig species group (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Synergini) with partially smooth mesopleurae from the New World, Zootaxa 4822 (1), pp. 1-38 : 29

Synergus stelluli Burnett, 1976

Synergus stelluli Burnett, 1976 . Proc. Entomol. Soc. Wash. 78 (3): 270. Type material: presumably lost.

Diagnosis. According to the original description, Synergus stelluli would be the only species addressed in this study that has lateral frontal carinae and a few micropunctures in the metasoma (at least in females) that also has the radial cell very short (2.1 times as long as wide), the vertex wrinkled in the ocellar area and the malar space 0.5 times as long as height of compound eye.

Distribution. USA. Cajon Pass, San Bernardino county, state of California ( Burnett 1976).

Biology. Reared from Andricus stellulus Burnett, 1974 on Quercus dumosa Nutt. (= Q. durata ) ( Quercus section) ( Burnett 1976).

Remarks. The type material of this species is presumably lost. It is not deposited in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (online database consulted), CAS (R. Zuparko pers. comm.), MCZ (Charles W. Farnum pers. comm.) nor USNM (collection examined). According to the original description ( Burnett 1976), females of this species key out near S. variegatus (see S. flavens ); however, S. stelluli differs from this species by the abovementioned morphological traits (see the diagnosis section). Since it has some characteristic morphological traits that make it different from the rest of species mentioned in this work (e. g. a very short radial cell length) and a unique combination of traits, we maintain S. stelluli as a valid species even though its type material is presumably lost. However, finding and examining the type material would allow for a better characterization of this species.