Buffingtonella Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar, 2019

Nastasi, Louis F., Buffington, Matthew L., Davis, Charles K. & Deans, Andrew R., 2024, Key to the North American tribes and genera of herb, rose, bramble, and inquiline gall wasps (Hymenoptera, Cynipoidea, Cynipidae sensu lato), ZooKeys 1196, pp. 177-207 : 177

Buffingtonella Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar, 2019

Type species.

Ceroptres politus Ashmead, 1896

Diagnosis.

Area between toruli not depressed and without dense pubescence. Metasomal tergite 1 relatively large and ring-like, not concealed, and longitudinally striate. Frons entirely without facial carinae ventral to toruli.

Note.

Buffingtonella is known only from Virginia from eight specimens collected in 1884 and 1885 ( Lobato-Vila and Pujade-Villar 2019). These specimens were apparently ovipositing into the midribs of leaves of Quercus rubra L. at the time of collection, and as such, B. polita has been assumed to be an inquiline of an unidentified oak gall wasp ( Lobato-Vila and Pujade-Villar 2019). However, the placement of this genus in Ceroptresini , its recognition as distinct from other related taxa, and its biology remain to be substantiated ( Lobato-Vila and Pujade-Villar 2019). Upon examining the aforementioned material of this species in the National Museum of Natural History, we confirm the diagnostic characters for the genus as described by Lobato-Vila and Pujade-Villar (2019) and have included it in the above key.

North American species (Nastasi and Deans 2021):

1. Buffingtonella polita (Ashmead, 1896)