Ischnobracon albitarsus Quicke and Butcher, 2010

Butcher, Buntika Areekul & Quicke, Donald L. J., 2010, Revision of the Indo-Australian braconine wasp genus Ischnobracon Baltazar (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) with description of six new species from Thailand, Laos and Sri Lanka, Journal of Natural History 44 (35 - 36), pp. 2187-2212 : 2190-2192

Ischnobracon albitarsus Quicke and Butcher sp. nov.

( Figure 1 )

Material examined

Holotype. Female , Malaysia, “Panang, Malaya, Tanjong Bungah Sonpri Kochil, 8.xii.1957 H. T. Pagden” ( BMNH).

Morphology

Length of body 13.5 mm, of fore wing 12.0 mm, and of ovipositor 8 mm. Antenna with 103 flagellomeres. Raised median area of first tergite not conspicuously depressed medially. Fore wing vein cu-a slightly postfurcal. Second submarginal cell rather long and narrow, vein 2-M 3.25 times longer than 2-SR. Hind wing vein 2-SC+R longitudinal. Base of hind wing with sub-basal cell largely glabrous and with a moderately large glabrous area distal to vein cu-a.

Colouration

Cream-yellow, the following black (or dark brown as indicated): antennae, differentiated triangular area of lower face, mid-longitudinal line on upper face, middle of frons, stemmaticum and transverse area across vertex and occiput reaching eyes, propleuron, lower half of lateral part of pronotum, mesoscutum except triangular area at anterior of notauli, anterior 0.6 of scutellum, mesopleuron except anterodorsal triangular area, tegula, mesosternum, most of metapleuron (dark brown), anterior and lateral part of propodeum, line on anterior aspect of fore tibia, hind coxa, hind trochantellus and basal 0.8 of femur and tibia (dark brown), metasomal tergites except antero-laterally and posteriorly. Wings pale smoky-grey to yellow grey with apical border darker grey.

Notes

The colour of the hind tarsus is the only character we can find in which it differs from I. laboriosus . The range of variation in the extent of the pale markings on the body and legs of I. laboriosus , excepting the hind tarsus, encompass the pattern of the new species. There is some variation in the conspicuousness of the longitudinal stripes on the fore and mid tibiae in I. laboriosus with the stripes being virtually absent in the four specimens seen from Java. However, the fore tarsal stripe of the new species is very conspicuous, and so if the entirely pale hind tarsus of the new species were just representing an extreme of the range of generally more pale marked individuals of I. laboriosus , we might expect it also to have a paler fore tibial stripe, which it does not. We believe therefore that this individual represents a distinct species from I. laboriosus .

Figures

Figure 1. Automontage® photomicrographs of features of Ischnobracon albitarsus sp. nov. (A) Habitus showing general colour pattern and hind tarsal colour; (B) metasoma, dorsal aspect; (C) head and anterior of mesosoma, lateral aspect.