Mesocynips Cameron, 1903

LIU, ZHIWEI, 2001, Phylogeny, Biogeography, and Revision of the Subfamily Dallatorrellinae (Hymenoptera: Liopteridae), American Museum Novitates 3353 (1), pp. 1-22 : 10

Mesocynips Cameron

Mesocynips Cameron, 1903: 91 . Type species:

Mesocynips insignis Cameron, 1903 (= Cynips

insignis Smith, 1858) by monotypy.

DIAGNOSIS: Body entirely yellowish brown. Foveate sculpture absent or almost absent from head and pronotum. Flagellum long and slender, F1 about 4 times as long as wide at midpoint; flagellomeres cylindrical, swollen distally. Eyes shorter than height of malar space and laterally protruding, but not distinctly beyond temple. Lower face and lateral surface of pronotum almost entirely glabrous. Clypeus strongly projected into upturned trapzoid, anteriorly only slightly emarginated (fig. 1). Occipital carina present only ventrally; dorsally carina reaches only lower margin of compound eye. Parascutal carinae posterolaterally smoothly curved. Scutellar sulcus divided into two foveae by median carina. Scutellum transversely costulate, falling gradually laterally as well as posteriorly. Metapleural sulcus abruptly bent at middle, metepisternum subrectangular. M + Cu 1 of forewing straight, not curved toward R + Sc (fig. 7). Procoxa laterally without a vertical carina. T7–T8 fused.

COMMENTS: Ronquist (1995a) listed a slightly and evenly curved metapleural sulcus and a subtriangular metepisternum as a synapomorphy for the family of Liopteridae . I have examined the four specimens of the only species of Mesocynips available to me and found, however, that the genus has a medially abruptly bent metapleural sulcus and a subrectangular metepisternum, a feature found only in the Ibaliidae among the Cynipoidea (Ronquist, 1995b). Since the monophyly of the Liopteridae is well supported (Ronquist, 1995a), this feature has apparently developed independently in the two lineages.