Apanteles cannabis Liu & Chen, 2020

Liu, Zhen, He, Jun-Hua, Chen, Xue-Xin & Gupta, Ankita, 2020, The ater-group of the genus Apanteles Foerster (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from China with the descriptions of forty-eight new species, Zootaxa 4807 (1), pp. 1-205 : 49-51

Apanteles cannabis Liu & Chen , sp. nov.

( Figures 20 , 99 )

Description. Holotype. Female. Body length 2.9 mm, fore wing length 3.0 mm.

Head. Transverse in dorsal view, 2.0× as wide as long, weakly wider than mesoscutum. Vertex between eye and posterior ocellus highly shiny, smooth, and impunctate. Temple slightly shiny, rough, and nearly impunctate, broad. Face 0.8× as high as wide, shiny, smooth, nearly impunctate, sparsely pubescent, inner margin of subparallel-sided. Ocelli not large, posterior tangent to anterior ocellus far beyond posterior ocelli, distance between fore and hind ocellus about as long as diameter of hind ocellus, POL:OD:OOL=4.8:2.0:3.5. Antenna slightly shorter than body length, thin, slightly shrunken apically, closely articulated, penultimate flagellomere 2.0× longer than wide.

Mesosoma. Length:width:height = 45.0:25.0:32.0. Disc of mesonotum dull, relatively long (nearly 0.9× as long as wide), with coarse, dense punctures, tend to be much coarser and confluent at the posterior large part around notaulic courses (but without longitudinal striations), interspaces smaller than diameter of puncture. Scutellar sulcus straight, narrow with dense carinae inside. Scutellum shiny, smooth, except for some superficial punctures anterio-laterally, median length indistinctly longer than basal width. Lateral polished field of scutellum reaching just over half length of scutellum. Propodeum shiny, weakly rugulose anterio-laterally, elsewhere almost shiny and smooth, areolation narrow, well defined with V-shaped apex and open anteriorly, costulae poorly defined owing to some transversal carinae around costulae. Mesopleuron highly shiny, anterior part with rugulose, shallow punctures, weakly strigulate on and above sternaulus.

Legs. Hind femur much thin, 3.4× longer than wide. Hind coxa shiny, slightly rough with indiscrete shallow punctures above (basally). Spines on outer side of third tibia stout, not dense. Inner spurs of hind tibia 2/5 length of hind basitarsus, outer spur 1/4. Basitarsus of hind leg distinctly longer than tarsomeres 2–4 combined (19.0:16.0), claws of normal size.

Wings. Pterostigma 3.5× as long as its widest part. Vein 1-R11.2× longer than pterostigma, 4.7× as long as its distance from apex of marginal cell. Vein r arising from middle of pterostigma, perpendicular to the latter, 1.3× longer than width of pterostigma, r 1.3× 2-SR, distinctly angled at junction, 2-M 1/3 length of 2-SR, 2-SR+M distinctly longer than 1-SR and slightly shorter than 2-SR, cu-a about as long as 2-SR. First discal cell of fore wing hardly 1.2× wider than high. Second submarginal cell of hind wing 1.4× wider than high. Vein cu-a weakly curved. Hind wing not broad, length of 1-M slightly shorter than distance between its distal extremity and apex of vannal lobe, and vannal lobe beyond its widest strongly concave and without setae.

Metasoma. 1.3× longer than mesosoma. T1 evenly, slightly converged from base, 2.2× longer than hind width, concave at basal third, turned-over part 1.5× longer than wide, shiny and rather weakly subrugose-punctate, longitudinal trough not deep with much fine transversal short carinae, apical tubercle shiny and polished. T2 shiny and smooth, 3.8× wider than long in the middle, curved into T3 apically. T3 1.8× longer than T2. Tergites posterior to T2 shiny, smooth, pubescent. Hypopygium not longer than apex of metasoma. Ovipositor sheath about 2.0× longer than length of hind tibia, rather thin with much pubescence. Ovipositor extremely thin and strongly curved entirely.

Colour. Black. Tegula black. Palpi yellowish brown and spurs pale yellowish. Antenna and ovipositor sheath dark brown. Labrum and mandible yellowish brown. Legs dark brown to black, except most part of fore femur, fore tibia with tarsus, apex of middle femur, basal fourth of middle tibia with tarsus (excluding the brown 5th segment), basal third of hind tibia with basal fourth of hind basitarsus yellow to yellowish brown. Wing membrane hyaline, C+SC+R, 1-R1, pterostigma, r, 2-SR and 2-M light brown, the rest more or less pale brown.

Male. Unknown.

Material examined. Holotype: 1♀, Kejiguan, Mt. Tianmu , light trap, Zhejiang, 1999.III.16, Zhao Mingshui, No. 20003166.

Distribution. China (Zhejiang).

Etymology. The specific name “ cannabis ” derives from the Latin, referring to the ovipositor sheath much narrow and densely setose.

Remarks. This species is similar to A. vala Nixon , but differs in the following: inner spur of the hind tibia 2/5 length of hind basitarsus (rather long and distinctly reaching beyond half length of the hind basitarsus in latter); penultimate flagellomere 2.0× longer than wide (1.5× in latter); and T2–6 with much setae (with setae reduced more or less to a single row in latter).

Figures

FIGURE 20. Apanteles cannabis Liu & Chen, sp. nov. Holotype, a. habitus, dorsal view; b. metasoma, dorsal view; c. mesonotum and scutellum, dorsal view; d. mesopleuron; e. propodeum; f. head, dorsal view; g. hind wing; h. head, frontal view. Scale line = 0.5 mm.

FIGURE 99. 17–32: Distribution map of ater-group of the genus Apanteles Foerster, 1862. 17: A. brevitempus Liu & Chen, sp. nov.; 18: A. brunnistigma Abdinbekova, 1969; 19: A. bulbus Liu & Chen, sp. nov.; 20: A. cannabis Liu & Chen, sp. nov.; 21: A. carpatus (Say, 1836); 22: A. carssus Liu & Chen, sp. nov.; 23: A. cerberus Nixon, 1965; 24: A. changhingensis Chu, 1937; 25: A. chloris Nixon, 1965; 26: A. clita Nixon, 1965; 27: A. cocotis Wilkinson, 1934; 28: A. crassus Liu & Chen, sp. nov.; 29: A. cyprioides Nixon, 1965; 30: A. cypris Nixon, 1965; 31: A. demades Nixon, 1965; 32: A. diocles Nixon, 1965.