Haltichella Spinola, 1811

Falahatpisheh, Ali, Fallahzadeh, Majid, Dousti, Abu Fazel & Delvare, Gérard, 2018, Review of Iranian Chalcididae (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) with nomenclatural notes, Zootaxa 4394 (2), pp. 251-269 : 259

Haltichella Spinola, 1811

As it is presently defined, the genus Haltichella is a cosmopolitan genus that currently includes 36 species (Bouček 1988b; Noyes 2017). Nevertheless, the American species are quite different from those from the Old World and possibly they form the sister group of the genus Aspirrhina Kirby. The Old World species have very special, thin and falcate mandibles and a clavate flagellum. They are found mostly in arboreal habitats. The generic limits of the Haltichellini are presently being investigated through a phylogenetic study using a large amount of molecular data (Cruaud et al. 2016) which hopefully will clarify the status of Haltichella . So far, the American Haltichella are generally parasitoids, sometimes facultative, of Microlepidoptera but the hosts of the Old World species are mostly unknown.