Microcrasis lonchaeae ( Lima, 1937 )

Marinho, Cláudia F., Costa, Valmir A. & Zucchi, Roberto A., 2018, Annotated checklist and illustrated key to braconid parasitoids (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) of economically important fruit flies (Diptera, Tephritidae) in Brazil, Zootaxa 4527 (1), pp. 21-36 : 23

Microcrasis lonchaeae ( Lima, 1937)

( Figure 1B )

Diagnosis. Mandibles exodont with four teeth (three well-developed, one weakly developed along lower border of mandible); propodeum with long median carina anteriorly followed by areola posteriorly, where anteriorly from the areola, run two transverse keels; notauli smooth and restricted to anterior portion of mesoscutum; wings hyaline, fore wing with m-cu reaching 2 nd submarginal cell, 2 nd submarginal cell long 5-sided (2RS longer than 3RSa), r-m strongly sinuous, 1 st subdiscal cell completely closed, hind wing with cu-a, 1A, r-m strongly pigmented and veins 2M, 1RSa, m-cu faintly pigmented but present.

Comments. Microcrasis lonchaeae is rarely found in surveys of fruit flies on fruit in Brazil. It was originally described as Opius lonchaeae , and later renamed Alysia lonchaeae by Lima (1938). Wharton (1980) transferred this species to the genus Microcrasis , based on the morphology of the fore wing. In Brazil, Lima (1937, 1938) associated M. lonchaeae with Neosilba pendula (Bezzi) , as Silba pendula and Lonchaea pendulans [sic] in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo ( Fernandes 2009). In São Paulo, Fernandes (2009) obtained M. lonchaeae in the same sample where species of Anastrepha and C. capitata emerged, although it is not clear which host, or if both hosts were parasitized. This parasitoid is also found in Santa Catarina ( Canal & Zucchi 2000).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Fruit fly braconid parasitoids. Asobara anastrephae (A); Microcrasis lonchaeae (B); Diachasmimorpha longicaudata (C); Doryctobracon adaimei (D); D. areolatus (E); D. brasiliensis (F) (figures are not on the same scale).