Alaptus nowickii Ghesquière, 1939

Serguei V. Triapitsyn, 2017, Revision of Alaptus (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) in the Holarctic region, with taxonomic notes on some extralimital species, Zootaxa 4279 (1), pp. 1-92 : 85

Alaptus nowickii Ghesquière, 1939

( Figs 190–193 )

Alaptus nowickii Ghesquière 1939: 33 –36. Type locality: Rutshuru , Rutshuru Territory, North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Alaptus nowickii Ghesquière : Debauche 1949: 10 (key), 14–15 (redescription).

Material examined. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO: ORIENTALE PROVINCE: Yakusu, Sentier Forêt, 18.viii.1951 [2 ♀, ISNB] . Tshopo District, Isangi Territory, Yangambi : 14.viii.1951 (from male flowers of oil palm, Elaeis sp.) [3 ♀, ISNB] ; 16.viii.1951 (from male flowers of oil palm, Elaeis sp.) [5 ♀, ISNB]. Yaosuka (a village), Isalowe River , 16.viii.1951 [2 ♀, ISNB] .

Distribution. Afrotropical: Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Host. A parasitoid of Trichopsocus sp. ( Trichopsocidae ) whose eggs are laid in groups on the underside of coffee leaves ( Ghesquière 1939).

Comments. Alaptus nowickii was described and well illustrated from a series of the female holotype, 9 female paratypes and 1 male allotype (deposited in RMCA, not examined) collected in May 1938 by J. Ghesquière in the coffee plantations in Rutshuru, then Belgian Congo ( Ghesquière 1939). The examined non-type specimens from the Democratic Republic of the Congo match its original description quite well. These slide-mounted females ( Fig. 190 ), whose body length is 303–345 µm, are characterized by the following features: body, pedicel and flagellum of antenna brownish, scape and legs mostly yellowish; antenna ( Figs 191, 193 ) with pedicel longer than any funicle segment (all funicle segments short but slightly longer than wide except sometimes F1 subquadrate), clava about as long as combined length of F2–F5 but sometimes of F1–F5, fore wing ( Fig. 192 ) with 1–6 (but possibly as many as 8) setae in an incomplete median row (besides admarginal rows of microtrichia), about 9.2× as long as wide, and with its longest marginal seta about 4.8× maximum wing width; ovipositor 1.0–1.1× as long as metatibia, not exserted beyond apex of gaster. It is important to note that F2 of the male antenna of A. nowickii is a little longer than F1, as described and illustrated by Ghesquière (1939), so it cannot possibly be conspecific with A. iceryae or its proposed synonym A. priesneri in which F2 of the male antenna is notably shorter than F1. The fore wing of A. nowickii is narrower than that of A. andersoni , which is 7.5× as long as wide in the lectotype, and the latter species also has a relatively shorter marginal setae on the fore wing (3.2× maximum wing width in the lectotype) and just 1 seta in the middle of the disc.

Figures

FIGURES 190 – 193. Alaptus nowickii ♀ (Yangambi, Isangi Territory, Tshopo District, Orientale Prov., Democratic Republic of the Congo). 190, habitus; 191, antennae; 192, fore and hind wings; 193, antenna.