Conostigmus neotubifer Bijoy & Rajmohana, 2014

Bijoy, C, Rajmohana, K & Kumar, Ramesh, 2014, First report of the genus Conostigmus Dahlbom (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea: Megaspilidae) from India with description of a new species, Biodiversity Data Journal 2, pp. 991-991 : 991

Conostigmus neotubifer Bijoy & Rajmohana, 2014 sp. n.

Materials

Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: recordedBy: Ramesh Kumar; individualID: ZSI/WGRC/IR/INV.2652; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; preparations: Card mount; Taxon: scientificNameID: Conostigmusneotubifer; kingdom: Animalia; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; family: Megaspilidae; genus: Conostigmus; specificEpithet: neotubifer; scientificNameAuthorship: Bijoy and Rajmohana; Location: continent: Asia; island: Andaman and Nicobar island; country: India; stateProvince: Andaman and Nicobar island; locality: Port Blair ; verbatimLocality: Bathu Barthi; decimalLatitude: 11.768 N; decimalLongitude: 92.737 E; Identification: identifiedBy: Bijoy and Rajmohana; dateIdentified: 06/27/2013; Event: habitat: grassy field; eventRemarks: collected in malasie trap; Record Level: institutionID: ZSIC Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: recordedBy: Ramesh Kumar; individualID: ZSI/WGRC/IR/INV.2653; individualCount: 1; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; preparations: Card mount; Taxon: scientificNameID: Conostigmusneotubifer; kingdom: Animalia; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; genus: Conostigmus; specificEpithet: neotubifer; scientificNameAuthorship: Bijoy and Rajmohana; Location: continent: Asia; island: Andaman and Nicobar island; country: India; stateProvince: Andaman and Nicobar island; locality: Port Blair ; verbatimLocality: Bathu Barthi; decimalLatitude: 11.768 N; decimalLongitude: 92.737 E; Identification: identifiedBy: Bijoy and Rajmohana; dateIdentified: 06/27/2013; Event: habitat: grassy field; eventRemarks: collected in malasie trap; Record Level: institutionID: ZSIC Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: recordedBy: Ramesh Kumar; individualID: ZSI/WGRC/IR/INV.2654; individualCount: 1; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; preparations: Card mount; Taxon: scientificNameID: Conostigmusneotubifer; kingdom: Animalia; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; genus: Conostigmus; specificEpithet: neotubifer; scientificNameAuthorship: Bijoy and Rajmohana; Location: continent: Asia; island: Andaman and Nicobar island; country: India; stateProvince: Andaman and Nicobar island; locality: Port Blair ; verbatimLocality: Bathu Barthi; decimalLatitude: 11.768 N; decimalLongitude: 92.737 E; Identification: identifiedBy: Bijoy and Rajmohana; dateIdentified: 06/27/2013; Event: habitat: grassy field; eventRemarks: collected in malasie trap; Record Level: institutionID: ZSIC

Description

Holotype: Male (Fig. 1).

Coloration: Body blackish brown with head more darker; eyes and ocelli silvery with a bronze tinge; fore wing clear at base, with large infuscate area below pterostigma and radial vein extending to its posterior margin; scape, pedicel and A3 brownish yellow turning darker towards segments from A4 onwards; legs brownish yellow with coxae and posterior half of hind tibia blackish brown (Fig. 1); mandible light brown with darker distal extreme; pterostigma brown getting darker to wing margin; radial vein and costal vein pale brown (Fig. 8); body pubescence white.

Body: length: 1.52 mm.

Head: (length/width/height: 230/580/460); eye (length/width: 260/210); preoccipital crescent well-separated from posterior ocelli merging laterally into eye margin (Fig. 3); temple strongly carinated; preoccipital furrow present; ocellar triangle isosceles, narrow, short and raised; LOL <POL; hind ocelli remote from eye margin: POL/LOL/OOL: (80/40/110) Fig. 3. DFIm 57% of head width. Head 1.28 × wider than mesosoma (Fig. 5); facial sulcus present, extending to intertorular carina (Fig. 4); supraclypeal depression absent. Intertorular carina clear with a slightly elevated median peak (Fig. 3); ocular suture prominent and foveolate; eyes densely pubescent (Fig. 4); frons with sparse hairs; clypeus narrow and rectangular with angulated corners (Fig. 7); mandible long, bidendate, lower tooth distinctly longer than upper one.

Antenna: (Fig. 2); very long (subequal to the body length) and slender; scape nearly 4 × longer than wide; pedicel small and almost globular; A3 highly slender, nearly 4.8 × longer than wide, subequal to scape; flagellar segments quasi cylindrical with very slight serrations basally; pubescence shorter than breadth of segments; length/width measurements of antennal segments: scape (252/66), pedicel (60/48), A3 (255/53), A4 (147/54), A5 (140/53), A6 (122/53), A7 (128/61), A8 (117/64), A9 (108/57), A10 (82/70), A11 (127/54).

Mesosoma: (length/width/height: 610/450/460); mesosoma robust with very angular shoulders; alutaceous in sculpture; mesoscutum: (length/width: 230/440); mesoscutum nearly 2 × wider than long; lateral margin of mesoscutum posterior to anterior margin of notaulus convex; coarsely foveolate notaulices curve smoothly and converging posteriorly, meeting median furrow at transscutal articulation (Fig. 5); scutellum broadly rounded at apex with long hairs; axilliluar carinae present; metanotal-propodeal sulcus placed in regular intervals medially and with some longitudinal carina remote laterally (Fig. 9); propodeum unarmed, smooth and bare with sculpture effaced and with irregular carinae (Fig. 9) but stretched posteriorly into a inverted ‘U’ shaped narrow apex. Lateral propodeal carinae present. Propodeal spiracle large and conspicuous (Fig. 1); sternaulus absent (Fig. 6); anterior mesopleural sulcus and meso-metapleural sulcus distinct and foveolate; metapleuron bordered by incomplete carina; lower margin of mesopleuron and metapleuron with dense hairs.

Forewing: (Fig. 8); total wing length 1.25 mm. Pterostigma (length/width: 200/80) semielliptical, 2.4 × longer than wide. Radius (0.27 mm), slightly curved and 1.36 × the length of pterostigma; maximal width of fused costal and subcostal vein wider than radius; basal part with less hairs.

Metasoma: (Fig. 10); (length/width/height: 484/390/340); metasoma smooth; gastral collar well developed and widened more than that of propodeal strip, with syntergal translucent patch. Four strong transverse gastral carinae present on basal portion of metasoma. A pair of paler gastrocoeli seen quite below gastral collar; largest tergite, T3 occupying 72% of metasomal length. Metasoma held in an elevated manner, above propodeal plane (Fig. 1) (best visible in lateral view). Genitalia with short basal ring, volsella widely separated basaly with long terminal setae on each parossiculi (Fig. 15) (harpe damaged).

Female (Paratype)

Figs 11, 12, 13, 14.

Body length 1.68 mm. Body colouration and the morphological features of head, mesosoma and metasoma are the same as holotype, except the measurements of antennal segments, proportion of radius and pterostigma and length of metasoma.

Scape more than 4 × as long as wide and A3 more than 3 × as long as wide. Pedicel slender to succeeding antennal segments. Length/width measurements of antennal segments: scape (321/73), pedicel (103/51), A3 (170/51), A4 (97/65), A5 (86/79), A6 (83/90), A7 (90/87), A8 (79/84), A9 (80/85), A10 (87/78), A11 (124/68).

DFIm 52% of head width and fore wing infuscation much darker compared to paler infuscation in male fore wing. T3 occupying 57% of metasomal length.

Diagnosis

Conostigmus neotubifer sp. n. can be diagnosed by the following features.

Head transverse, wider than mesosoma. Male antenna subequal to body length with A3 highly slender, 4.8 × as long as wide and subequal to scape. Flagellar segments in male quasi cylindrical with very slight serrations basally. Female antenna with scape more than 4 × as long as wide and A3 more than 3 × as long as wide. Ocellar triangle isosceles, narrow based, short and raised in both sexes. Facial sulcus extending to intertorular carina in both sexes. Preoccipital furrow distinct. Supraclypeal furrow absent. DFIm 0.57% of head width in male and 0.52% of head width in female. Eyes densely pubescent. Dorsal margin of propodeal foramen ‘U’ shaped in dorsal view; median propodeal projection absent. Sternaulus absent. Metasoma dorsally elevated from the propodeal axis. Forewing infuscus, darker in female and paler in male.

Biology

Unknown.

Etymology

The species is named 'neotubifer', since this species resembles Conostigmus tubifer ('Neo' in Latin = 'new').

Distribution

INDIA, Andaman Nicobar island, Port Blair.