Promicrogaster saraswatti Sathe & Bhoje, 1998

Fernandez-Triana, Jose, Boudreault, Caroline, Dapkey, Tanya, Smith, M. Alex, Rodriguez, J., Hallwachs, Winnie & Janzen, Daniel H., 2016, Revision of the genus Promicrogaster (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, Costa Rica, with a key to all species previously described from Mesoamerica, Journal of Hymenoptera Research 50, pp. 25-79 : 33-34

Promicrogaster saraswatti Sathe & Bhoje, 1998 incertae sedis

Promicrogaster saraswatti Sathe & Bhoje, 1998: 105. Original description.

Holotype.

Female, depository unknown. INDIA, Maharashtra, Kolhapur. Holotype not examined.

Comments.

There are several issues that will require further study to clarify the status and identity of this species. First, all other Promicrogaster specimens that we have seen in collections (from either described or undescribed species) are restricted to the New World, and all published evidence (e.g., Mason 1981, Whitfield 1997) does not support this genus to be present in India. Second, Promicrogaster saraswatti was described by Sathe and Bhoje (1998) as a parasitoid of Phytomyza atricornis Meigen ( Diptera : Agromyzidae ), which is very suspicious, as all authenticated records of Microgastrinae are from Lepidoptera (e.g., Shaw and Huddleston 1991, Whitfield 1997, Quicke, 2015). Third, Sathe and Bhoje (1998) recorded in their paper the body size of the parasitoid wasp to be 4.64 mm and the wasp cocoon to be 4.5 mm; this is in strong contrast to a much smaller size for its supposed host: larvae of Phytomyza atricornis are only known to reach a maximum length of 3.5 mm and their puparia are even smaller at 2.1-2.5 mm ( Cohen 1936). All of that points towards this species not being Promicrogaster but some other Microgastrinae (impossible to tell based on the unclear original description, which lacked any illustration); and the parasitoid’s biology might well have also been misunderstood and should be considered as highly questionable. To complicate things further, no details about the institution storing the holotype and 33 paratypes (reportedly from the same locality and data as holotype) were provided by the authors. Because the original description of P. saraswatti is the only source of information currently available, this species remains unrecognizable.