Aleiodes frosti, Shimbori, Eduardo Mitio & Shaw, Scott Richard, 2014

Shimbori, Eduardo Mitio & Shaw, Scott Richard, 2014, Twenty-four new species of Aleiodes Wesmael from the eastern Andes of Ecuador with associated biological information (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Rogadinae), ZooKeys 405, pp. 1-81 : 37-39

Aleiodes frosti sp. n. Figures 47-51

Description of holotype.

Female (holotype). Body length 8.1 mm; antenna length 10.7 mm; fore wing length 7.6 mm.

Body color. Yellowish to honey yellow, except for the ocellar triangle and antenna dark brown. Wings tinged yellowish; veins honey brown, parastigma blackish with central yellowish spot.

Head. Antenna 65 antennomeres, antenna 1.3 × longer than body, flagellomeres roughly 2 × longer than wide, apical flagellomere with long and narrow “bottle-nipple” -shaped apex; malar space short, about as long as basal width of mandible, and about 0.33 × eye height; in dorsal view eyes 5 × longer than temples; occipital carina incomplete dorsally, well defined laterally and meeting hypostomal carina; oral space small and circular, maximum width equal to basal width of mandible; clypeus large, not swollen; ocelli large, ocell–ocular distance about 0.4 × diameter of lateral ocellus; maxillary palp not swollen; head surface sculpture finely shining granulate, occiput smooth and shining; higher face with a small longitudinal ridge and transverse rugosity directed to it; frons polished and excavated, without lateral ridges.

Mesosoma. Sculpturing shining granulate; pronotum with few wrinkles posteriorly and dorso-laterally; mesopleuron with small area at antero-dorsal corner rugose, and some wrinkles dorsally; propodeum longitudinally rugose posteriorly, mid-longitudinal carina almost complete; notauli with few crenulae and shallow anteriorly, meeting on depressed rugose area posteriorly; posterior margin of mesoscutum with complete carina; scutellar sulcus shallow and smooth except for the median carina.

Wings. Fore wing: stigma 5.3 × longer than high; vein r 0.7 × vein 2RS, 0.7 × longer than vein RS+Mb, and 0.5 × vein m-cu; vein 3RSa 0.5 × vein 3RSb, and as long as vein 2M; vein 1CUa 1.7 × vein 1cu-a; vein 1CUb 2.4 × vein 1CUa; vein 1M weakly curved at its basal portion; RS+M straight. Hind wing: m-cu present, short and weakly pigmented, interstitial or just antefurcal to r-m; M+CU 1.25 × vein 1M; 1M as long as r-m; RS mostly straight and gradually opening from wing margin, slightly bent downward at mid length; vein M straight, dark brown, well pigmented; vein 2-1A present as a short stub.

Legs. Hind tibia with comb of modified setae; tarsal claw simple, not pectinate; hind basitarsus 3 × longer than inner apical spur of hind tibia.

Metasoma. T1, T2 and basal 2/3 of T3 rugose–striate, longitudinal carina complete on T1 and almost complete on T2, but not reaching posterior margin; ovipositor sheaths parallel sided and truncate, about as long as hind tarsomere III; metasoma unusually long and narrow, T1 2.2 × longer than its apical width.

Variation. Body length about 8.5 mm; antennomeres = 63; ocelli larger, ocell–ocular distance 0.25 × diameter of lateral ocellus; hind wing vein 2-1A absent to short.

Male. Body length about 8.5 mm; antenna with 63 segments. Virtually identical to female, but ocell–ocular distance 0.3 × diameter of lateral ocellus.

Mummy. Length 14.0 mm, black, thorax brown, head honey brown mottled brown, tubular in shape, thorax compact and wrinkled, exit mode unique within Aleiodes : the parasitoid cuts a radial opening at posterior side of the mummy, just behind the hind abdominal prolegs, releasing a “lid” with the anal prolegs.

Type material.

Type-locality: ECUADOR, Napo Province, Yanayacu Biological Station, YY-50211, Beat C-16, S00°35.9', W77°53.4', 2163 m, cloud forest, September 5, 2010.

Type-specimen: Holotype female and mummy, point mounted separately. Top label: "ECUADOR: Napo Province / Yanayacu Biological Station / S00°35.9', W77°53.4' 2163m / CAPEA - NSF-BSI-07-17458 / (hand written) July 2010 / YY-50211; back (hand written): “5-Sep-2010”. (UWIM)

Paratypes, 1 female and 1 male (UWIM), same data as holotype, except: 1♀, 23 May 2008, Yanayacu Road, YY-31409, colección por golpeo / ex. Poaceae Chusquea scandens - wasp emerged 02 July 2008; 1♂ YY-46923, beat 638, ex. host plant: Poaceae Chusquea scandens parasitoid emerged 10 May 2010.

Biology.

Host plant Chusquea scandens ( Poaceae ); host Lepidoptera : Scoturopsis Hering sp. ( Notodontidae ); time span from pupation to emergence: about 5 weeks for females, unknown for the male. The parasitoid cuts a radial opening at posterior side of the mummy releasing a “lid”, comprinsing the anal apex of mummified caterpillar, before emergence. The mummy exit mode of this species is unique for the genus, since all previously known mummies produced by Aleiodes species had a posterior hole cut for emergence ( Zaldívar–Riverón et al. 2008).

Discussion.

Aleiodes frosti sp. n. belongs to the seriatus species-group. This species resembles Aleiodes nigricosta (Enderlein, 1920) because of its entirely yellowish to honey yellow body, black stemmaticum and brown antenna, but differs in the honey brown fore wing vein C+SC+R, black in Aleiodes nigricosta . Aleiodes frosti sp. n. also differs in the extension of median longitudinal carina on metasoma, which is incomplete on tergite 2, but extends to half of tergite 3 in Aleiodes nigricosta , and the exceptionally elongate metasoma. Aleiodes frosti sp. n. is also similar to Aleiodes elleni sp. n. by the nearly straight hind wing vein RS, enclosing a marginal cell gradually widening toward wing apex, but it can be readily distinguish by the interrupted occipital carina on vertex, compared to the complete occipital carina of Aleiodes elleni sp. n. The diameter of lateral ocelli, 3 –4× longer than ocell–ocullar distance, is also a diagnostic character shared only with one Neotropical species, Aleiodes nigribasis (Enderlein, 1920); however, most of the already mentioned diagnostic features for Aleiodes frosti sp. n. (e. g. shape of metasoma and hind wing vein RS, and color patern) are also useful to distinguish it from Aleiodes nigribasis . Within the Yanayacu species in the Aleiodes seriatus group it is similar to Aleiodes greeneyi because of the incomplete occipital carina at vertex. It differs from Aleiodes greeneyi by the entire yellowish body and its unusual long and narrow metasoma.

Etymology.

The species is named after the American poet Robert Frost (1874 - 1963), author of the poem "The Road Not Taken." This species name is also a reference to that poem, and to the unusual emergence mode of this species, recorded here for the first time. The following quotation extracted from this poem summarizes its idea: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by," Robert Frost, 1920. This Aleiodes species takes a "road not taken" by other species, to its adulthood, by emerging in a different and unique way.