Brachycyrtus lucchii Di Giovanni & Varga, 2021

Giovanni, Filippo Di & Varga, Oleksandr, 2021, First record of the subfamily Brachycyrtinae (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae) from continental Africa, with description of three new species, Zootaxa 4985 (2), pp. 203-218 : 211-213

Brachycyrtus lucchii Di Giovanni & Varga , sp. n.

( Figs 5A–C , 6A–F )

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:ED07C44D-0DBB-4222-B5C7-F223755E3692

Examined material. Holotype: ♀, “ ZIMBABWE: Salisbury / Chishawasha / xi.1980 A. Watsham ” ( NHM) . Paratypes: ♂, “ ZIMBABWE: Salisbury / Chishawasha / xii.1080 / A. Watsham ” ( NMH) ; ♀, “ ZIMBABWE: Salisbury / Chishawasha / i.1981 A. Watsham ” ( NMH); ♀, “C. R. S. CA. 419 / [ ZIMBABWE] Chipinga Distr. S. R. / 6/1/1975 / ex Chrysopid pupa / Coll: R. Hill / C5, 210” ( NHM); 2♀♀, “RHODESIA [ ZIMBABWE]: Salisbury / Chishawasha / v.78 A. Watsham ” ( NMH); ♀, “RHODESIA [ ZIMBABWE]: Salisbury / Chishawasha / i.1979 A. Watsham ” ( NHM); ♀, “RHODESIA [ ZIMBABWE] / Chishawasha / x.1979 / A. Watsham ” ( NHM); ♀, “ ZAMBIA / 15 km E. Lusaka / 4-15.xii.1979 / R. A. Beaver ” ( NHM); ♂, “ ZAMBIA / 15 km E. Lusaka / 11-21.i.1980 / R. A. Beaver ” ( NHM); ♂, “ ZAMBIA / Lusaka / 1-14.iv.1980 / R. A. Beaver ” ( NHM); ♀, “ T867 // UGANDA / Kawanda // xii.1947 / T. H. C. Taylor ” ( NHM); ♀, “ TANZANIA T. A. R. O. / Ilonga, Kilosa / J. Kabrissa // Mallada pupa / coll: 10/6/91 cotton / para: 27/6/91 wasp // Brachycyrtus sp. det. L. Ficken ‘92” ( NHM); ♀, “ TANZANIA T. A. R. O. / Ilonga, Kilosa / J. Kabrissa // Mallada larva on cotton / coll: 3/5/ 91 pupa 14/5/91 / para emer: 29/5/91 // Brachycyrtus sp. det. L. Ficken ‘92” ( NHM). ♀, “ KENYA, Nairobi Prov. , ICIPE campus, Kasarani, 1.22317ºS, 36.89653ºE, 1600 m, Malaise trap, nr. stream, meadow in degraded shrub-/ grassland, 1–7.iv.2014, leg. R. Copeland ” ( ICIPE); ♀, “ KENYA, Nairobi Prov. , Kasarani, ICIPE , Duduville campus, ‘ Eco-farm’, 1°13’18.0”S, 36°53’48.0”E, 16– 21.xii.2012, leg. A. Gumovsky ” ( SIZK); ♂, ♀, “idem., 9–11.xii.2012, leg. A. Gumovsky ” ( SIZK) .

Description. Body length about 4.1–4.2 mm. Fore wing length 2.9 mm. Body with a moderately dense covering of short, fine, white setae.

Head ( Figs 5A–C , 6A ). Face about 0.8× as high as maximum wide; face polished, with dense and strong punctures; clypeus smooth, shining and without punctures, apical margin evenly and gently curved; malar space about 0.9× as basal width of mandible; eye strongly emarginate opposite antennal socket; frons and vertex polished with small and dense punctures, temple and gena polished, with inconspicuous punctures; temple narrowed behind eye (in dorsal view), gena about 0.45× as transverse diameter of eye (in lateral view); occipital carina strongly marked ventrally, joining hypostomal carina above mandible base, hypostomal carina slightly elevated; ocular-ocellar distance as long as the maximum diameter of posterior ocellus, about 0.3× the distance between posterior ocelli; flagellum with 28 flagellomeres, with last nine flagellomeres just slightly enlarged; first flagellomere about 4.0–4.2× as apically wide, second flagellomere about 2.7× as apically wide.

Mesosoma ( Figs 5C , 6A, 6C ). Pronotum polished, with inconspicuous punctures on posterior upper hind corner; epomia straight, flange-like and extending to dorsal edge; pronotum with few small wrinkles on ventral corner between epomia and posterior margin. Mesoscutum subpolished, strongly punctate to rugose-punctate medially, densely punctate on lateral sides; notauli absent; scuto-scutellar groove with small longitudinal ridges; scutellum subpolished, with dense punctures; scutellum with carinae extending to about 0.7× of its length. Mesopleuron polished, with dense punctures on anterior and on ventral half, on posterior half with fine longitudinal striae near to its posterior margin; sternaulus small and shallow, straight, punctate-crenulate; epicnemial carina present, ending opposite to ventral angle of pronotum, epicnemial carina strongly elevated ventrally in the middle, between fore coxae; posterior transverse carina of mesosternum absent at level of mid coxae, present medially. Metapleuron subpolished, with punctures along margins and just above hind coxa, central part without punctures or with few isolated punctures. Propodeum mat and coriaceous; anterior transverse carina complete; area basalis obliterated, with a short longitudinal carina joining anterior transversa carina and anterior margin of propodeum; posterior transverse carina complete laterally but absent medially, thus area superomedia and area petiolaris joined; area superomedia coriaceous and without punctures, area petiolaris with transverse striae; area externa with dense punctures on coriaceous surface; area dentipara with just few scattered punctures on coriaceous surface; area lateralis with dense punctures on coriaceous surface; pleural carina complete; propodeal spiracle sub-oval.

Wings ( Figs 5A , 6E ). Fore wing with 1cu-a distal to M&RS by about 0.45× the length of 1cu-a; 2rs-m about 0.25× as long as the section of 1m-cu&M between 2rs-m and 2m-cu. Hind wing with abscissa of CU present but spectral, CU slightly shorter or slightly longer than cu-a (i.e., nervellus intercepted just above or just below the middle respectively, in Townes’ morphological nomenclature).

Metasoma ( Figs 6B, 6D, 6F ). Polished with fine setiferous punctures on postpetiole and all metasomal tergites; metasomal tergite II with thyridia present, oblique; tergite II about 2.1× as apically wide, and about 0.9× the length of tergite I. Ovipositor sheath about as long as hind tibia; ovipositor straight.

Colour. Face, clypeus, gena, mandible except teeth, palpi, scape light yellow; vertex and a patch on dorsal part of occiput black with indistinct margins; teeth reddish–brown; antenna light yellow basally, yellowish–red apically. Mesosoma yellow and black; one central and two lateral bands on mesoscutum, scuto-scutellar groove, suture between scutellum and postscutellum, a small vertical band on mesopleuron near to mesopleural suture, a narrow band on propodeum anterior to anterior transverse carina, insertion point of petiole black; tegula yellowish–brown. Fore and mid coxae, trochanters and trochantelli pale yellow; fore and mid femurs, tibiae and tarsi yellow; hind leg yellow, hind trochanter, hind femur in the middle, hind tibia basally, apically and on inner side slightly yellowish–red to yellowish–brown; last tarsomere of all legs brownish–black. Metasomal tergite I pale yellow with an undefined yellowish–brown patch dorsally in the middle; metasomal tergite II black at the base, yellowish–brown in the middle, pale yellow at the apex and on lateral margins; other metasomal tergites yellowish–brown basally, pale yellow apically; on metasomal tergites II and III the dark areas tend to form a horseshoe drawing, i.e., apical yellow part extending forward at the center of the tergite. Veins and pterostigma yellowish–brown. Ovipositor sheaths brown.

Male. As in the female. Aedeagus and parameres as in Fig. 6B ; the paramere is produced in an elongate spine, similar in shape to parameres of ichneumonids of subfamily Mesochorinae ; this is an unusual shape for parameres of Darwin wasps males, which is found very rarely outside the subfamily Mesochorinae (e.g., Baltazar 1964)

Variation. Head: in lighter specimens, head entirely yellow and black area reduced to just around ocelli; in darker specimens, black patch on dorsal part of occiput more extended and connected to the black vertex. Two males from Zambia with 27 flagellomeres. Mesosoma : in lighter specimens, black patches reduced and with indistinct reddish–brown margins, black patch on mesopleuron and band on propodeum reduced to absent; in darker specimens, black patches more extended and sharper, sternaulus with small brownish–black patch and vertical line along anterior margin of metapleuron black. Metasoma: in lighter specimens, metasomal tergite II black at the base, with the black area forming an evenly sharper band on the basal 0.3, remaining of the tergite yellowish–red then pale yellow on the apical 0.25; metasomal tergite III with a very narrow black band at the base (sometimes absent), remaining of the tergite yellowish–red then pale yellow on the apical 0.25; following tergites reddish basally, pale yellow apically, rarely slightly darker at the base; in darker specimens, horseshoe drawing on metasomal tergites II, III and sometimes IV darker and sharper, dark part more extended laterally and defined, in contrast with the remaining part of the tergite yellow.

Biology. One specimen from Zimbabwe was obtained from a generic unidentified chrysopid pupa. Two specimens from Tanzania were obtained from Mallada sp. (Chrysopidae) collected in cotton fields. Likely, the Brachycyrtus collected in Tanzania and preserved at NHM are those mentioned in Kabissa et al. (1996); the authors obtained Brachycyrtus sp. from pupae of field collected larvae of Mallada desjardinsi (Navás, 1911) ( Kabissa et al. 1996) . Probably the name on the labels “J. Kabrissa” is a misspelling for J. C. B. Kabissa, the author of the 1996 paper. According to the label, at least in one case a female was obtained from a larva of Mallada , suggesting that in this species oviposition is in the host larva and emergence is from the host pupa. This is an unusual finding, since all the reliable known host records for Brachycyrtinae report them as parasitoids of pupae and prepupae of chrysopids ( Gauld 2000). Further rearings in the future may help clarify the biology of this species and whether this record is reliable or not.

Differential diagnosis. Brachycyrtus lucchii sp. n. can be distinguished from all the other species of the genus by the combination of the following characters: eye strongly emarginate opposite antennal socket; flagellum with with 27–28 flagellomeres, with last nine flagellomeres just slightly enlarged; gena about 0.45× as transverse diameter of eye (in lateral view); occipital carina joining hypostomal carina above mandible base; scuto-scutellar groove with small longitudinal ridges; mesopleuron with dense punctures on anterior and on ventral half, on posterior half with fine longitudinal striae near to its posterior margin; epicnemial carina strongly elevated ventrally in the middle, between fore coxae; metapleuron subpolished, with punctures along margins and just above hind coxa, central part without punctures or with few isolated punctures; propodeum with area basalis obliterated, area superomedia and area petiolaris joined, area superomedia coriaceous and without punctures, area petiolaris with transverse striae; fore wing with 1cu-a distal to M&RS by about 0.45× the length of 1cu-a; 2rs-m about 0.25× as the section of 1m-cu&M between 2rs-m and 2m-cu; metasomal tergite II with thyridia present; ovipositor straight; male parameres elongate, metasomal tergite I pale yellow with an undefined yellowish–brown patch dorsally in the middle; metasomal tergite II black at the base, yellowish–brown to yellowish–red in the middle, pale yellow at the apex and on lateral margins; other metasomal tergites dark brown to yellowish–brown basally, pale yellow apically; the dark areas on metasomal tergites II and III, and sometimes IV tend to form a defined horseshoe drawing in darker specimens.

Distribution. Eastern and southern part of Africa.

Etymology. The new species is named in honour of Prof. Andrea Lucchi, for his contributions in agricultural entomology and biological control.

Figures

FIGURE 5. Brachycyrtus lucchii Di Giovanni & Varga, sp. n., A and B: female, holotype; C: male, paratype. A: habitus, lateral view. B: face, frontal view. C: temple and mesoscutum, dorsal view.

FIGURE 6. Brachycyrtus lucchii Di Giovanni & Varga, sp. n., A, C, D and F: female, holotype; B and E: male, paratype. A: mesopleuron and metapleuron, lateral view. B: male aedeagus and paramere, ventrolateral view. C: propodeum, dorsolateral view. D: metasoma, dorsolateral view. E: wings, lateral view. F: ovipositor, lateral view.