Mantibaria kerouaci, K.Veenakumari & Rajmohana & Prashanth, 2012

K. Veenakumari, Rajmohana, K. & Prashanth, M., 2012, Studies on Phoretic Scelioninae (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) from India along with description of a new species of Mantibaria KIRBY, Linzer biologische Beiträge 44 (2), pp. 1715-1725 : 1716-1719

Mantibaria kerouaci nov.sp. VEENAKUMARI & RAJMOHANA ( Figs 1-7 )

H o l o t y p e:Female: Length – 2.37 mm.

F e m a l e: Head and mesosoma brown both dorsally and ventrally; orbital border, occipital carina, mesoscutum laterally, mesoscutellum, metascutellum and propodeum on all sides with a narrow black border; ocellar region with a black tinge; metasoma golden brown, concolorous with legs and antenna; extremities of legs black; wings extremely clear.

Body moderately robust; FCI= 1.65, LCI=1.02; head 1.2 times wider than mesoscutum (HW/TSL=1.2), in dorsal view transverse and globular in lateral view and with a uniform leathery sculpture throughout, along with a few scattered erect setae; frons, occiput and vertex fully sculptured, scaly reticulate; with a shallow depression on median frons just above interantennal process; central keel substituted by a sulcus, extending upto median ocellus; entire head covered with few sparse pale setae; all three ocelli placed close together on top of vertex. POL 1.75 times as long as OOL (POL/OOL=1.75); OOL almost as long as LOL (OOL/LOL =1.23); OOL <2x OD (5:3); occipital carina complete; eyes with very fine setae visible in 40X; temples large and well developed in dorsal view; as long as eye length; interocellar area darker than surrounding areas; clypeus trapezoid; maxillae and labium very distinct and yellow; mandibles tridentate with all three teeth equal, with faint striae radiating from its base onto malar region; setae on frons sparse, but denser and erect just above clypeus; A1 3 to 4 times as long as radicle (A1/r= 4.4 in female, 3.2 in male); female antennal flagellum ten segmented and eleven segmented in male; female antennae not clearly differentiated into clava; antennae honey brown (female) to yellowish brown (male) and clothed with setae; last flagellar segment elongated apically on one side, with 3 tubercles.

Mesosoma: 1.3x as long as wide; pronotum visible from above, shoulder angular; cervix dorsally smooth; epomial carina absent; cervical pronotal area with few faint striations and sparse setae; dorsal pronotal area and lateral pronotal area scaly reticulate; prothoracic spiracle very prominent; pronotal suprahumeral sulcus and mesonotal suprahumeral sulcus not foveolate; propleuron striated; promesopleural suture very broad and band like; skaphion and notauli absent; parapsidal furrows faintly and partly represented; mesoscutum highly convex, as long as wide (TSL/ML=1.12) and scaly reticulate; medially on its lower two-third with a longitudinal median carina or a faint median mesoscutal line, indicated at least in traces; preaxilla well developed and scelrotized; scutoscutellar sulcus wide, not crenulate medially; mesoscutellum truncate (slightly drawn out medially at lower margin), protruding, scaly reticulate; longitudinal median keel distinct, but gradually merging with surrounding sculpture on its lower one-fourth; metascutellar plate rectangular, wide medially and laterally, not protruding over propodeum; metanotal trough finely striate obliquely; setae absent on mesoscutum and mesoscutellum; mesoscutellum twice as wide as long (SW/SL=1.92); metascutellar carina distinct; propodeum very broad, unarmed with seven to eight longitudinal carinae radiating upwards from its lower margin; upper lateral portion of propodeum differentiated into longitudinally striated, broadly depressed triangular area, prespiracular propodeal area demarcated by a high, raised carina; propodeum with a median longitudinal and two lateral carinae on either side, surrounded by a few irregular carinae; propodeum with no lateral or medial pilosity.

Metasoma broader at anterior end and tapering posteriorly; T1 medially depressed/concave, at its anterior end; all tergites with uniform scaly reticulate sculpture throughout; first five abdominal segments subequal in length (0.17mm in female and 0.19 mm in male); length of T6 0.5x length of T5; T7 smallest; in females T7 has two circular sensory plates; all abdominal tergites adorned with pale setae laterally; mesosternum and metasternum darker than other ventral parts.

Legs well developed with enlarged femur and tibiae; fore-tibia with a papilla-like blunt spine on its outer margin, opposite to spur; hind femur broad, laterally tapering along edges; all legs clothed with setae; first tarsal segment almost as long as 2 nd and 3 rd tarsal segments together; fifth tarsal segment enlarged and elongated, curved and as long as all four tarsal segments combined; claws and arolium well developed; arolium with chitinized edges; tarsal segments of hind leg larger than that of other pairs of legs; (0.051, 0.025, 0.018, 0.027, 0.131, 0.097 mm (arolium); claw 0.03 mm).

Both sexes alate; forewing wider than width of mesoscutum (0.64mm), hyaline, with no veins (WW/TSL=1.2); hind wing almost 10 times wider than marginal cilia (HWW/ HWS=9.66); entire wing covered with small brown setae.

M a l e: Length 2.62 mm. Body both dorsally and ventrally fully black, except lower half of frons, gena, mouth parts and antennae, being honey brown in colour; mandibles brownish with three teeth, extremities black; all legs uniformly yellowish brown with black extremities; all other characters resembling that of female.

E t y m o l o g y As species of Mantibaria are phoretic we name this species ‘ Mantibaria kerouaci’ in honour of Jack Kerouac who wrote the immortal hitch hiking classic ‘On the Road’.

M a t e r i a l e x a m i n e d: Holotype: Female, (Reg.No.ICAR/NBAII/P19), I n d i a: Karnataka: Bangalore (Hessaraghatta, Nandini Sperm Bank), 28.V.2010, sweep net, at a latitude of 13 0 10' 49.18'' N, longitude of 77 0 30' 15.42'' E, altitude 789.5 MSL habitat: grassland Paratypes: One male (Reg.No.ICAR/NBAII/P20) and two females (Reg.No.ICAR/NBAII/P21) and (Reg.No.ZSI/WGRS/IR.INV.2264) with same data as holotype.

B i o l o g y: As per literature, Mantibaria are parasitoids of mantid eggs. Shortly after emergence, the adult female Mantibaria attaches herself to the abdomen of praying mantids, and often remain inactive, until oviposition by the host. Once the host mantid oviposits, the parasitoid descends into it at once and lays her eggs in those of the host, before the frothy covering of the egg mass has hardened (GALLOWAY & AUSTIN 1984). They are quite unusual in that they feed on the haemolymph of their host during their phase of phoresy ( MASNER 1976).

D i s c u s s i o n: Mantibaria is represented in the Australian, Palearctic and Afrotropical realms; it is yet to be reported from the new world. PRABU & MANICKAVASAGAM (2004) reported Mantibaria from Tamil Nadu ( India), without providing the species identity. Hence M. kerouaci nov.sp., described here becomes the first species under Mantibaria to be described from India as well as the Oriental Region.

Only three species, M. mantis (DODD) from the Australian region, M. seefelderiana (De STEFANI) from the Palearctic region and M. solygiae RISBEC from the Afrotropical region ( JOHNSON 1992, 2011) constitute the known world Mantibaria fauna. M. solygiae was reared from the ootheca of the mantid, Soligia sulcatifrons SERVILLE 1893 while M. mantis was reared from the ootheca of Mantis religiosa (LINNAEUS 1758). MINEO and SZABO 1978, provide a fairly good description of M. seefelderiana . Descriptions of the other two species are however, sparse.

For the current study, available literature on all the three known species and the digital images of the type specimens available at The Platygastroidea website were referred to. The images of female holotype of M. mantis at http://osuc.biosci.ohiostate.edu/hymDB/eol_scelionidae.content_page?page_level=3&page_id=taxon_page_dat a&page_version=4901&page_option1=I and those of the syntypes of M. seefelderiana at http://osuc.biosci.ohiostate.edu/hymDB/eol_scelionidae.content_page?page_level=3&pa ge_id=taxon_page_data&page_version=4902&page_option1=I were compared.

As per DODD (1913), head and mesosoma of both sexes of M. mantis , are black, while metasoma is dorsally black, and ventrally brown. But in M. kerouaci , the sexes are dichromatic, the females are with brown head + mesosoma and metasoma golden brown, while the males are totally black. In M. mantis OOL > 2x OD, while in the new species it is distinctly <2x.

According to MINEO & SZABO (1978), in M. seefelderiana , both the males and females are black while in M. kerouaci nov.sp. only the males are black. T1 is more transverse, 5x as long as wide in M. seefelderiana , while it is hardly 3x in the new species. In the former, mesosoma is somewhat elongate,>1.7x as long as wide, where as in M. kerouaci it is only 1.3x.

As per RISBEC 1950, M. solygiae is known only by males and are reddish yellow in colour (in M. kerouaci nov.sp., all males are black). Their mandibles are reduced, with median denticles strong and the dorsal teeth are not as long as the median, while the ventral one is reduced almost to a stub (in M. kerouaci nov.sp. mandibles are tridentate with all teeth equal). T1 is nearly smooth in M. solygiae , whereas, it is scaly reticulate in the new species. However, on examining the slide mounted types of M. solygiae, MASNER (1976) commented that the species may be conspecific with M. anomala KIRBY (= M. seefelderiana ).

None of the three described species has a median ridge on mesoscutum; M. kerouaci nov.sp. can be diagnosed by a combination of the following characters: Sexes dichromatic, females with head and mesosoma brown, and metasoma golden brown, while males are totally black; body with a scaly reticulate sculpture throughout; OOL <2x OD, POL also <2x LOL; females with a prominent or atleast traces of a longitudinal ridge on median two-third of mesoscutum; mesosoma 1.3x as long as wide; median ridge on mesoscutellum prominent in both sexes.

Figures

Figs 1-6: Mantibaria kerouaci nov.sp.: (1) habitus male (dorsal view); (2) male antenna; (3) habitus female; (4) mesosoma dorsal view; (5) mesosoma profile; (6) female antenna.

Figs 7-12: Mantibaria kerouaci nov.sp. (contd.): (7) metasoma. Sceliocerdo viatrix: (8) habitus dorsal view; (9) mesosoma; (10) head front view; (11) head ventral view; (12) pleura.