Pseudophanerotoma huichol Falcon-Brindis, 2022

Falcon-Brindis, Armando, Leon-Cortes, Jorge L., Mancilla-Brindis, Ruben F., Estrada-Virgen, Mario Orlando & Cambero-Campos, Octavio J., 2022, A new species of Pseudophanerotoma (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) from Nayarit, Mexico, ZooKeys 1095, pp. 165-177 : 165

Pseudophanerotoma huichol Falcon-Brindis sp. nov.

Diagnosis.

Pseudophanerotoma huichol sp. nov. can be distinguished from the other species by the unicolorous head, meso, and metasoma, except for the dark brownish integument on the apical half of hind femora and a small spot on the mesopleuron (sometimes absent in males); antenna with 52 antennomeres in females and 46 antennomeres in males, occipital carina complete.

Description (female).

Body length 5.5 mm; ratio of length of fore wing to body 0.8; ratio of metasoma to mesosoma 1.2 (Fig. 1A-C ).

Head. Antenna with 52 antennomeres; ratio of width of face to its height in frontal view 1.4; ratio of width of clypeus to its height 1.8; ratio of length of third antennomere to width 3.7; ratio of length of fourth antennomere to width 3.0; ratio of length of penultimate antennomere to width 1.3; malar space to base of mandible 0.3 mm. Clypeus convex and sparsely punctate with two teeth; face straight in lateral view, punctate; frons and vertex densely punctate; ratio of LOL:POL:OOL 0.1:0.1:0.1:0.4.

Mesosoma. Mesoscutum shiny and densely punctate, mid mesoscutal area coarsely sculptured; notauli present; mesopleuron punctures shallow and less dense; scutellar sulcus present, with coarse pits; mesoscutellum convex and punctate; propodeum areolate; propodeal tubercles absent; ratio of mesosoma height to its length 0.6; ratio of hind tibia to hind tarsus 2.1; ratio of length to width of hind coxa 2.0; ratio of length to width of hind femur 5.2; ratio of length to width of hind tibia 7.5; ratio of length to width of hind tarsus 6.2; ratio of length of fore wing to body 0.8; fore wing length 4.2 mm; 1RS present; M curved; RS+M spectral (Fig. 2 ).

Metasoma. Oval in dorsal view; sculpture striate throughout; ratio of metasomal width to length 0.6; ratio of length of the three metasomal tergites 0.7:0.7:0.8.

Color. Scape, head, meso and metasoma ferruginous; antennomeres and legs pale orange to yellowish; dark brown integument on tegula, a small spot on the top of mesopleuron (below the tegula) and apical half of hind femora. Wings hyaline with greenish-purplish reflections, wing venation brown to dark brown; parastigma and pterostigma dark brown.

Type material.

Holotype and paratypes specimens are pinned and deposited in ECO-SC-E. Holotype: Mexico: ♀, Lo de Lamedo, Tepic, Nayarit 21.54222, -104.92833; 880 m elev., 10 Oct. 2020; 21.53388, -104.93722; 860 m elev., 04 Sep. 2020; R.F. Mancilla-Brindis leg. Holotype voucher code 69271. Paratypes: 6 ♀: 69272, 69273, 69274, 69275, 69276, 69277; 5 ♂: 69278, 69279, 69280, 69281, 69282.

Description (male).

Antenna with 46 antennomeres. Body length 5.2 mm; ratio of length of fore wing to body 0.8; ratio of length of metasoma to mesosoma 1.2 (Fig. 3A-C ).

Head. Antenna with 46 antennomeres; ratio of width of face to its height in frontal view 1.2; ratio of width of clypeus to its height 2.0; ratio of length of third antennomere to width 4.5; ratio of length of fourth antennomere to width 3.6; ratio of length of penultimate antennomere to width 1.9; malar space to base of mandible 0.3 mm. Clypeus convex and sparsely punctate with two teeth; face straight in lateral view, punctate; frons and vertex densely punctate; ratio of LOL:POL:OOL 0.1:0.1:0.1:0.3.

Mesosoma. Same sculpture patterns as in female; ratio of mesosoma height to its length 0.7; ratio of hind tibia to hind tarsus 1.9; ratio of length to width of hind coxa 2.1; ratio of length to width of hind femur 4.4; ratio of length to width of hind tibia 5.3; ratio of length to width of hind tarsus 5.8; ratio of length of fore wing to body 0.8; fore wing length 4.1 mm.

Metasoma. Oval in dorsal view; sculpture striate throughout; ratio of metasomal width to length 0.6; ratio of length of the three metasomal tergites 0.6:0.6:0.8.

Color. In general, male is paler than female; scape, head, meso and metasoma light orange; antennomeres and legs pale yellow to beige; dark brown integument on tegula and apical half of hind femora. Wings the same color pattern as in female.

Remarks.

This species differs from all the other congeners by having a large number of antennomeres in both sexes: 52 and 46 antennomeres in females and males respectively.

Biology.

Parasitoid of Cryptaspasma perseana , a tortricid pest of avocado documented in Hidalgo, Michoacán, and Nayarit, Mexico ( Mancilla-Brindis et al. 2019).

Sequence data.

GenBank accession number for this species is COIMZ501206.

Etymology.

The species is named in honor to the Huichol culture from Nayarit, Mexico.

According to the phylogenetic analysis for the barcoded Pseudophanerotoma species (Fig. 4 ), the closest species to P. huichol sp. nov. was P. alejandromarini Sharkey, 2021 (90%), both being sister species of P. paranaensis Costa Lima, 1956 (100%). The results from the evolutionary distance analysis showed that P. alexsmithi and P. austini are the closest species (0.0051), followed by P. huichol sp. nov. - P. alejandromarini (0.0133), P. alejandromarini - P. paranaensis (0.0261). In contrast, the pairwise comparison between P. austini - P. allisonbrownae and P. alexsmithi - P. allisonbrownae revealed the largest evolutionary divergence (0.2167) (Table 1 ).

Figures

Figure 1. Pseudophanerotoma huichol sp. nov., female A head frontal B lateral habitus C dorsal view of meso and metasoma. Scale bars: 1.0 mm.

Figure 2. Pseudophanerotoma huichol sp. nov., fore wing. Scale bar: 1.0 mm.

Figure 3. Pseudophanerotoma huichol sp. nov., male A head frontal B lateral habitus C dorsal view of meso and metasoma. Scale bars: 1.0 mm.

Figure 4. Bootstrap consensus tree of Pseudophanerotoma species. Five species are missing due to the lack of sequence information. The percentage of replicate trees in which the associated taxa clustered together in the bootstrap test are shown next to the branches. The lower clade has a weak bootstrap support.