Glyptapanteles vergrandiacus Fagan-Jeffries, Bird & Austin, 2022

Fagan-Jeffries, Erinn P., McCLELLAND, Alana R., Bird, Andrew J., Giannotta, Madalene M., Bradford, Tessa M. & Austin, Andrew D., 2022, Systematic revision of the parasitoid wasp genus Glyptapanteles Ashmead (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Microgastrinae) for Australia results in a ten-fold increase in species, European Journal of Taxonomy 792 (1), pp. 1-116 : 106-109

Glyptapanteles vergrandiacus Fagan-Jeffries, Bird & Austin sp. nov.

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Fig. 52

Diagnosis

Glyptapanteles vergrandiacus sp. nov. is in the G. arcanus species group and can be separated from the other members of the species group (other than from G. arcanus sp. nov.) by having the propodeum with generally coarser sculpturing than most species, other than G. lambkinae sp. nov. and G. erucadesolator sp. nov. and with T1 less strongly sculptured than in G. lambkinae sp. nov. and G. erucadesolator sp. nov. It is noted, however, that all these species (along with G. goodwinnoakes sp. nov., which has T1 smooth) are morphologically very similar and identifications should be made with DNA barcodes. There was not a morphological character found to easily differentiate G. vergrandiacus sp. nov. from G. arcanus sp. nov., which are sister lineages in the current phylogeny ( Fig. 2 ), but these two species differ in the wingless barcode by a single base pair and can also be separated by the COI barcodes, which have a>3% divergence.

Etymology

The species epithet ‘ vergrandiacus ’ is a combination of the Latin words ‘vergrandis’, meaning ‘little’ and ‘acus’, meaning ‘needle’ and refers to the short ovipositor present on this species. It is a noun in apposition.

Material examined

Holotype AUSTRALIA • ♀; Queensland, Kuranda ; -16.8135, 145.6430586; 317 m a.s.l.; 12 Feb.–6 Apr. 2020; M.S. Moulds leg.; Malaise Trap EFJ2020MT36; Extraction1548, BOLD: AUGLY102-21; QM T250989 .

Paratypes AUSTRALIA – Queensland • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; Extraction1521, BOLD: AUGLY093-21; QM T250990 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; Extraction1525, BOLD: AUGLY095-21; QM T250991 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; Extraction1541, BOLD: AUGLY097-21; QM T250992 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; Extraction1555, BOLD: AUGLY105-21; QM T250993 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; Extraction1560, BOLD: AUGLY107-21; QM T250994 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for preceding; 16 Nov.–13 Dec. 2019; Extraction924, BOLD: AUGLY019-21; QM T250995 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; 14 Dec. 2019 – 6 Jan. 2020; Extraction1097, BOLD: AUGLY047-21; QM T250996 • 1 ♀ (ethanol); same collection data as for holotype; 8 Jan.–11 Feb. 2020: Extraction1511, BOLD: AUGLY090-21; QM T250997 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; Extraction1513, BOLD: AUGLY091-21; QM T250998 • 1 ♀ (ethanol); same collection data as for holotype; 19 May–8 Jul. 2017; Extraction731, BOLD: AUMIC484-18; QM T250999 .

Description

Female

COLOURATION. Gena without a pale spot; labrum reddish-brown; scape colour in ventral half uniformly paler than flagellomeres; flagellomeres uniformly reddish-brown or darkening distally; tegula dark; wing veins uniformly black or brown, or with small lighter area proximally; anteromesoscutum all dark; scutellar disk and metanotum dark; propodeum dark; fore coxa dark; mid coxa dark; hind coxa dark; fore femur pale yellow; mid femur pale yellow or dark proximally, lightening distally; hind femur dark; fore tibia pale yellow; mid tibia pale yellow; hind tibia darkening posteriorly; hind basitarsus light brown; T1 dark; T2 sclerotised area dark; T2 lateral area dark extends past indentation, but then pale; T3 mostly dark with paler lateral areas; T4+ dark.

HOLOTYPE BODY MEASUREMENTS. Body length 2.2 mm; fore wing length 2.2 mm; antennal length similar to body length.

HEAD. Antennal flagellomere 14 length/width 1.62–2.16; antennal flagellomere 2 length/width 3.00– 3.42; OOD/POD 1.71–2.17; IOD/POD 1.29–1.57.

MESOSOMA. Anteromesoscutum sculpturing with shallow to deep punctures, space between punctures varying from smaller than diameter of punctures to larger than diameter of punctures, very sparse, deep punctures or very sparse, shallow to deep punctures; scutellar disk sculpturing with only very shallow punctures, smooth and shiny; 7–11 pits in scutellar sulcus; propodeum with median carina absent and propodeum strongly rugose.

WINGS. Pterostigma length 0.52 mm; pterostigma width 0.16 mm; r 0.16 mm; 2RS 0.13 mm; 2m 0.09 mm; (RS+M)b 0.06 mm.

METASOMA. T1 lateral edges parallel for anterior ¾ of length, then narrowing posteriorly or broadest at centre of length, narrowing both posteriorly and anteriorly from mid-point; T1 smooth in anterior half, indistinct sculpturing in posterior half; T1 length 0.35 mm; T1 width at posterior edge 0.14 mm; T2 an isosceles trapezoid, lateral edges straight; T2 smooth and shiny; T2 length 0.15 mm; T2 width at posterior edge 0.27 mm; ovipositor slightly protruding from end of metasoma.

Male

Unknown.

Remarks

Glyptapanteles vergrandiacus sp. nov. constitutes BIN BOLD:ADL3012 and is 3.67% (p-dist.) divergent from the closet BIN in the database (BOLD:ADL5262; Glyptapanteles arcanus sp. nov.).

Using the BOLD Batch ID engine, the COI sequence of the holotype is 3.6% different from the most similar COI sequence from an Australian specimen (AUMIC423-18; Glyptapanteles arcanus sp. nov.). All of the type specimens were sequenced for the wingless gene, which is identical within the species and differs by a minimum of 1 bp from all other species with available sequence data.

Distribution

This species is known only from Kuranda in northern QLD.

Figures

Fig. 52.Glyptapantelesvergrandiacus Fagan-Jeffries, Bird &Austin sp. nov., paratype, ♀ (QMT250990). A. Lateral habitus. B. Anterior head. C. Fore wing. D. Dorsal head. E. Lateral head. F. Dorsal habitus.

Fig. 2. Maximum likelihood phylogeny constructed using IQ-TREE ver. 1.6.12 of a concatenated COI and wingless alignment including Glyptapanteles Ashmead, 1904 from Australia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji, with specimens of Cotesia Cameron, 1891 from Australia included for contextual placement of the genus. Branch support values are given as SH-aLRT support (%) / ultrafast bootstrap support (%), with symbols representing value ranges as follows: * = 96–100; • = 91–95; ^ = 85–90; - = <85.