Aximopsis Ashmead, 1904

Lotfalizadeh et al. (2007) proposed a broad definition of Aximopsis which embraces the nodularis species group of Eurytoma and includes species that are parasitoids of a variety of endophytic hosts in stems and leaf-mines, beetle galleries in wood and in twigs containing nests of aculeate Hymenoptera . The genus is speciose in tropical countries. It is included by Zerova (2010) in the robusta species group of Eurytoma based on the presence of a ventral shelf on the mesepisternum.

Two species were found associated with asphodels in Europe, A. collina and the newly described A. balajasi . They are morphologically extremely close and would not have been separated without molecular data. They are distinguished from other Palaearctic species of Aximopsis by their biology; they have been reared from galls of Diplolepis species (Lotfalizadeh et al. 2006; Askew et al. 2006) and, as here reported, from seeds of asphodels. Other European Aximopsis species with known biology are parasitoids of xylophagous Coleoptera (Zerova 1995, 2010) or of aculeate Hymenoptera nesting in twigs (Zerova 1995, 2010) and are often collected on dead trunks or branches. Morphologically A. collina and A. balajasi are distinguished from their congeners by the following characters: lower face with radiating raised carinulae reaching above lower margin of antennal toruli (Fig. 27A), pedicel without basidorsal constriction (Fig. 27C), clava effectively 1-segmented with all its segments fused (Fig. 28C), ventral shelf of mesepisternum short and distinctly elbowed with epicnemium (Figs 26, 28A); setation of fore wing entirely white and marginal vein shorter than both the stigmal and postmarginal veins (Figs 26, 28A).