Trigonalys india Smith, 2015

Smith, David R. & Tripotin, Pierre, 2015, Trigonalidae (Hymenoptera) of Thailand, other southeastern Asian records, and a new Trigonalys from India, Journal of Hymenoptera Research 44, pp. 1-18 : 11-13

Trigonalys india Smith sp. n.

Figs 24-27

Trigonalys rufiventris : Carmean and Kimsey 1998: 70 (misidentification).

Description.

Female. Length 8.0 mm. Head black; clypeus and mandibles yellowish except apex of mandible black. Mesosoma black with yellow spot on dorsoposerior pronotum. Legs black with following yellow: apices of coxae, trochanters, extreme bases of femora, apical third of fore femur, outer surfaces of tibiae. Metasoma orange with first segment, and central area of sterna 2 and 3 black. Basal half of wings hyaline, somewhat darkly infuscated at center and apex; veins and stigma black. Head and body with silvery hairs. Head smooth, shiny with very few scattered fine punctures; mesosoma and metasoma uniformly finely punctate. Antenna long, filiform, with 25-26 antennomeres, 2 × head width. Malar space narrow, slightly less than diameter of an ocellus. Eyes small, round, inner margins not converging below; lower interocular distance about 1.4 × eye height. Lower frons between antennae shelflike or ledgelike, overhanging supraclypeal area. Distance between toruli about equal to distance be tween torulus and inner margin of eye. Occipital carina narrow, less than half diameter of an ocellus. Medio-apical process at apex of sternite 3, flangelike, directed backward apically, quadrate.

Male. Length, 7.8 mm. Color similar to female but metasoma mostly black, to darky reddish mostly at base of second tergite. Tyloids present on antennomeres 12-16, round, shiny, diminishing in size toward antennomere 16.

Type material.

Holotype, female, labeled "Nilgiri Hills, Singara, 3400', So. India, V-48, P. S. Nathan" (MCZ). Paratypes: Same data as for holotype (1 ♀, MCZ); Jabalpur, central India, Sep. 1957, 1600 ft., P. S. Nathan (1 ♀, 1 ♂, OSAC) (female with head missing).

Etymology.

Named after the country of origin, a noun in apposition.

Comments.

These are the specimens examined and identified as Trigonalys rufiventris (Magretti) by Carmean and Kimsey (1998). Generic characters place them in Trigonalys , and, although similar to L. rufiventris in color, they differ by the placement of the occipital carina, overhanging shelflike interantennal area, presence of tyloids on the antenna of the male, and a medio-apical process on the third sternite of the female.

Most species of Trigonalys are Neotropical and Ethiopian. Only one species is recorded from Asia, T. lachrynosa Westwood, 1874, described from Mindanao, Philippines. We have examined one female of T. lachrynosa from "Surigao, Mindanao" in the USNM, identical to Westwood’s illustration (1874, plate 23, fig. 5), the same specimen examined by Carmean and Kimsey (1998). Trigonalys lachrynosa is almost entirely black with small yellow spots on the mesosoma. We know of no other species of Trigonalys with the color combination of T. india - the mostly black head, mesosoma, and legs and a mostly reddish metasoma.

Figures

Figures 24 - 27. Trigonalys lindia, holotype female. 24 Lateral 25 Head, front 26 Apex of metasoma, ventral, showing projection on third sternite 27 Metasoma, lateral.