Loxaulus Mayr, 1881

Melika, George, Nicholls, James A., Abrahamson, Warren G., Buss, Eileen A. & Stone, Graham N., 2021, New species of Nearctic oak gall wasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae, Cynipini), Zootaxa 5084 (1), pp. 1-131 : 86

Loxaulus Mayr, 1881

Currently 14 species of Loxaulus are known from America north of Mexico, which are associated with different Quercus sections ( Dailey 1977, Burks 1979, Dailey & Sprenger 1983, Melika & Abrahamson 2000): five species gall section Quercus , one species galls section Virentes , one galls section Lobatae , three gall section Protobalanus and for the other four species the hosts are unknown. Four new species of Loxaulus have recently been described from Panama and Mexico ( Medianero et al. 2011, Pujade-Villar et al. 2014b), three from section Quercus oaks and one from a section Lobatae oak (although the latter record must be reviewed). As is the case with Dryocosmus , this variation in host section implies this genus may be polyphyletic. Herein we describe one new species, L. virginianae Melika & Buss , which is associated with Q. virginiana (in the oak section Virentes ).