Encarsia mineoi Viggiani, 1982

Schmidt, Stefan & Polaszek, Andrew, 2007, The Australian species of Encarsia Förster (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea: Aphelinidae), parasitoids of whiteflies (Hemiptera, Sternorrhyncha, Aleyrodidae) and armoured scale insects (Hemiptera, Coccoidea: Diaspididae), Journal of Natural History 41 (33 - 36), pp. 2099-2265 : 2197-2198

57. Encarsia mineoi Viggiani

( Figures 180–182 )

Encarsia mineoi Viggiani 1982, p 27 . Holotype ♀, Libya, Sidi Mesri, 10 June 1969 (G. Mineo), ex Bemisia tabaci . (DEUN, examined). Encarsia mineoi Viggiani : Polaszek et al. 1992, p 386; 1999, p 156; Schmidt et al. 2001, p 379, 381.

Diagnosis

Female. Colour: head and body yellow except clypeus margin brown, pronotum and midlobe of mesoscutum anteriorly slightly darker. Antenna dark. Fore wing hyaline. Legs pale.

Morphology: stemmaticum with transversely reticulate surface sculpture. Antennal formula 1,1,4,2. Pedicel longer than F1 (1.45). F1 2.10 times as long as its maximum width, shorter than F2 (0.61) and F3 (0.55). Flagellomeres with the following numbers of sensilla: F1: 0, F2: 0, F3: 3, F4: 3, F5: 3. Midlobe of mesoscutum with four setae, arranged symmetrically, side lobes with one seta each. Scutellar sensilla widely separated (approximately five to six times the maximum width of a sensillum). Distance between anterior pair of scutellar setae smaller than between posterior pair. Fore wing sparsely setose and with bare area near leading edge, 3.2 times as long as width of disc. Marginal fringe about 0.6 times as long as width of disc. Basal cell with three setae. Submarginal vein with two setae, marginal vein anteriorly with five setae. Tarsal formula 5-5-5. Apical spur of midtibia very short and distinctly less than half the length of the corresponding basitarsus (0.27). Tergites laterally with the following numbers of setae: T1: 0, T2: 1, T3: 1, T4: 1, T5: 2, T6: 1, T7 with four setae. Ovipositor slightly shorter than midtibia (0.88). Third valvula 0.57 times as long as second valvifer.

Male. No males of the species were collected. For a description of E. mineoi males from elsewhere see Polaszek et al. 1999, p 158. The males are hyperparasitoids (Pedata, personal communication).

Species group placement. E. parvella group sensu Hayat (1989a, 1998) (5 parvella + pergandiella groups sensu Viggiani and Mazzone 1979, 5 Aleurodiphilus DeBach and Rose, 1981 ).

Distribution. Australia: Queensland. Egypt, Israel, Libya, Spain, Sudan.

Host. Aleyrodidae : Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) . Additional host records ( Polaszek et al. 1999):? Acaulaleyrodes citri (Priesner and Hosny) , Siphoninus phillyreae (Haliday) . Males presumably hyperparasitoids of Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood) ( Polaszek et al. 1999) .

Material examined

Queensland: 1♀, Redland Bay, December 1998 (J. R. Hargreaves), ex Bemisia tabaci on Lantana camara L. ( Verbenaceae ) (ANIC).

Figures

Figures 180–182. Encarsia mineoi Viggiani, female. (180) Mesosoma and gaster. (181) Head and antenna. (182) Fore wing.