Cotesia vestalis ( Haliday, 1834 )

Fagan-Jeffries, Erinn P. & Austin, Andrew D., 2020, Synopsis of the parasitoid wasp genus Cotesia Cameron, 1891 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Microgastrinae) in Australia, with the description of seven new species, European Journal of Taxonomy 667 (667), pp. 1-70 : 58-59

Cotesia vestalis ( Haliday, 1834)

Figs 4B , 31 C–E

Microgaster vestalis Haliday, 1834: 253 (lectotype, ♀, NMI).

Apanteles plutellae Kurdjumov, 1912: 226 .

Apanteles vestalis – Marshall 1872: 106 (transferred to Apanteles s.l.).

Cotesia plutellae – Mason 1981: 113 (transferred from Apanteles s.l).

Cotesia vestalis – Shaw 2003 (synonymy with C. plutellae ).

For a full list of synonyms and bibliography, see Shenefelt (1972: 604, 659), Shaw (2003), Yu et al. (2016) and Fernández-Triana et al. (2020).

Diagnosis

Cotesia vestalis can be separated from all other species of Cotesia currently described from Australia and Papua New Guinea by the following combination of characters: T1 broadening consistently posteriorly, almost wedge shaped; scutellar disk with large, strong circular punctures; T3 with multiple rows of setae.

Material examined

TAIWAN • 1 ♀; Shanhua (AVRDC); 2 Mar. 1998; M. Keller leg.; “ Cotesia plutellae Kurd. ” Ex Plutella xylostella (l.); WINC .

Distribution

Theoretically introduced to all states of Australia, but recently found only in “southern states” and only infrequently ( Furlong et al. 2008).

Host

Plutella xylostella ( Linnaeus, 1758) (Plutellidae) . See Shenefelt (1972: 604, 659) and Yu et al. (2016) for extra-limital host records.

Remarks

Introduced to Australia in 1951 from Italy as a biological control agent against P. xylostella , but not considered well established or a significant parasitoid of this lepidopteran pest ( Furlong et al. 2008). This species forms a distinct clade in the COI phylogeny ( Fig. 1 ) using sequences available on BOLD from outside of Australia. No Australian specimens were sequenced in this study. See remarks under C. ruficrus for issues using the diagnostic characters presented in the key of Nixon (1974) for this species.

Figures

Fig. 4. A. Cotesia ruficrus (Haliday, 1834), T3 (ANIC 32 130230). B. Cotesia vestalis (Haliday, 1834), T3 (WINC).

Fig. 31. A–B. Cotesia urabae Austin & Allen, 1989, paratype, ♀ (WINC). A. Habitus in dorsal view. B. Fore wing. C–E. Cotesia vestalis (Haliday, 1834), ♀ (WINC). C. Head in dorsal view and anteromesoscutum. D. Propodeum and dorsal metasoma E. Fore wing.

Fig. 1. Map of Australia showing the collection locations of the seven newly described species of Cotesia as well as a Bayesian phylogeny of these species and the other Cotesia spp. known to occur in Australia with publically available COI data. Species listed in black are those treated in this study, whilst those in grey are not treated due to being represented by single specimens, or are BOLD sequences that fall outside the rest of that species clade and are therefore possible misidentifications. BOLD codes for these single specimens are given at the end of the label in the tree. Symbols on the map correspond to the symbols on the phylogeny. Bayesian posterior probability values of ± 95 are represented by *, whilst those of 90–94 inclusive are represented by °. The number of sequences in collapsed clades are given in brackets (n = x). Outgroups have been removed for simplicity.