Pediobius obscurus Dawah and Al-Haddad, 2010

Dawah, H. A., Al-Haddad, F. H. & Jervis, M. A., 2010, Morphological and biological characterization of three closely related species of Pediobius Walker (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae), Journal of Natural History 36 (4), pp. 423-433 : 427-431

Pediobius obscurus Dawah and Al-Haddad , sp. nov.

(®gures 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a)

Female. General appearance: Length: 1.8±2.4 mm. Head: dark green; thorax green with metallic hue. Gaster: ®rst tergite bright blue, the remaining tergites darker. Antenna dark brown with bronze hues. Legs: coxae, femora and tibiae dark green, with metallic reēctions; fore tarsi dark brown; mid and hind tarsi pale translucent brown with dark brown claw. Wings: clear, veins light brown-yellow.

Head (®gure 3a, b). Broader than mesoscutum, 1.2±1.3 times as broad as long; POL 2.6±2.8 times OOL. Eyes: deeply emarginate, sparsely clothed with short whitish setae, separated by a distance equal to their height at frontal fork. Oral fossa 4.3 times length of malar space, scrobal grooves either meeting the fork or meeting below it (®gure 3). Antenna (®gure 1a) scape not reaching the lower edge of the median ocellus, inserted at approximately 0.3 times height of eye; pedicellus 2.1±2.3 times as long as broad, approximately 0.75 times length of ®rst funicular segment (= F1); scape approximately 0.73 times combined length of pedicellus plus ¯agellum; scape 3.1 times length of pedicellus, clava bisegmented and somewhat broader than F3, equal in length to combined F2 plus F3; F1 and F2, 1.2±1.7 times as long as broad; F3 0.9±1.1 times as long as broad, F1 and F2 approximately 1.3 times as long as F3, dorsal surface of ¯agellum clothed with rather dense brown hairs with bronze hues. Thorax (®gure 2a): approximately 1.8 times as long as broad; reticulate; pronotum with collar sharply emarginate; mesoscutum 2.0 times as broad as long, mesoscutum always with two pairs of long bristles, the anterior pair situated on the mid lobe, the posterior pair usually on the side lobe; scutellum convex, hardly longer than broad, ovate, smooth anteriorly and with wide polygonal meshes of reticulation posteriorly and with one pair of bristles; propodeum with submedian carina parallel in anterior third of it and archedly diverging backwards, fairly shiny with ®ne, very slightly raised, reticulation; dorsellum 6.0±6.2 times as long as broad; spiracles separated from each other by a distance 2.0 times length of dorsellum. Legs: fore legs with spur straight, approximately equal in length to third tarsal segment; middle legs with tibia longer than both tarsus and femur, spur as long as ®rst tarsal segment; hind legs with femur as long as tibia. Wings: hyaline, densely hairy; venation pale, testaceous; forewing width 2.5 times that of hind wing, rounded apically 2.3±2.5 times as long as broad, postmarginal vein 1.7 times as long as stigmal vein, marginal vein 2.3±2.5 times as long as submarginal vein; forewing width 2.5 times that of hind wing. Gaster (®gure 3a): ovate, sparsely hairy, as long as or slightly longer than head plus thorax, approximately as broad as thorax, twice as long as broad; ®rst gastral tergite smooth and shining green to violet, covers onethird of gaster, the remaining tergites dark blue to brown with strong alutaceous sculpturing anteriorly and ®ne sculpturing; covering one-third of the gaster, ovipositor sheaths projecting slightly; short transverse petiole, dorsal surface reticulate, raised medially with two longitudinal ridges on either side, one above the other.

Male. Length 1.2±1.5mm. Resembling female but body coloration more vividly green. Antennae (®gure 1d): longer, one segmented clava with long terminal spine; all funicular segments very distinctly petiolate; often showing a tendency to decrease in length; scape shorter and broader, 2.8 times as long as broad, 1.6 times longer than club; second, third and fourth funicular segments equal in length, funicle clothed with long, white to brown hairs.