Brasema baccharidis (Kieffer)

Gibson, Gary A. P., 2016, Revision of the Neotropical genus Macreupelmus Ashmead (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Eupelmidae), Zootaxa 4161 (1), pp. 81-115 : 111

Brasema baccharidis (Kieffer) n. comb.

Macreupelmus baccharidis Kieffer in Kieffer & Jörgensen, 1910: 376 –377. Holotype ♀, location unknown.

Remarks. Kieffer & Jörgensen (1910) apparently reared a single female that Kieffer described as Macreupelmus baccharidis from galls of Baccharomyia interrupta (Kieffer & Jorgensen) (= Lasioptera interrupta ) ( Diptera : Cecidomyiidae ) collected in Argentina along with five other parasitoid species in the families Platygastridae (Platygastroidea) , Eulophidae and Torymidae (Chalcidoidea) . The location of the female is not known and is presumed lost, but based on the description it could not have been a Macreupelmus because the fore wings are described as hyaline and the mandibles as being tridentate with three equally long, small teeth. Among other described features, the fore wing was also described as entirely setose, body color as metallic golden-green with some coppery luster, the basal four mesotarsomeres as having a single row of pegs along either side, the eyes setose, and the gaster as being as long as the rest of the body, almost linear with non-emarginate tergites of about the same length, and the last tergite as having a transverse row of long bristles. In combination, these features indicate either a female Brasema Cameron or possibly a female Zaischnopsis with hyaline fore wings. Brasema is much more likely because females of this genus have the syntergum apically truncate to slightly incurved with a transverse row of variably conspicuous setae projecting posteriorly from its margin. Further, many species are known parasitoids in galls of various insects ( Gibson 1995; Noyes 2016). Although females of some species of Zaischnopsis have completely hyaline fore wings, the syntergum is apically reflexed into a flange so that setae do not project conspicuously from the apex as described by Kieffer & Jörgensen (1910). Also, although hosts of Zaischnopsis are almost completely unknown, rearings of many different types of galls have never produced a known Zaischnopsis and the few reliable host records indicate they likely are egg-parasitoids ( Gibson 2005). For these reasons I hereby transfer Macreupelmus baccharidis Kieffer to Brasema as B. baccharidis (Kieffer) n. comb. The description provided by Kieffer (1910) may well be sufficient to recognize the species after a revision of the species of Brasema from Argentina.