Percnobracon Kieffer & Jörgensen

Martinez, Juan José, 2006, Three new species of Percnobracon Kieffer & Jörgensen (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) from Argentina, reared from cecidomyiid (Diptera) and eurytomid (Hymenoptera) galls, Zootaxa 1282, pp. 49-58 : 50-51

Percnobracon Kieffer & Jörgensen

Percnobracon Kieffer & Jörgensen 1910: 436 ; Belokobylskij 1993: 134. Percnobracon Kieffer ; Muesebeck 1958: 460; Marsh 2002: 173.

Percnobracon Jörgensen & Kieffer ; De Santis 1967: 46.

Type species: Percnobracon stenopterus Kieffer & Jörgensen , by monotypy

Diagnosis: The genus can be distinguished easily from other doryctine genera by the following combination of characters: Forewing infuscate with two hialyne transverse bands, vein r­m absent, vein (RS+M)b longer than 2RS, metasoma petiolated, basal sternal plate 0.50 to 0.70 times as long as metasomal tergum I; associated with galls or seed pods.

Description: Body length 1.2–3.3 mm; oral opening small, about the same length of malar space to slightly shorter; malar space 0.4–0.9 times eye height; 13–21 antennomeres; occipital carina meeting hypostomal carina; face rugulose; frons, temples and vertex striate; pronotal collar indistinct, pronotal groove scrobiculate; mesoscutum trapezoidal, rounded to strongly angled anteriorly; notauli present anteriorly and scrobiculate, sometimes obscured by mesonotal sculpture; mesoscutum with a median longitudinal carina posteriorly; sternaulus smooth or scrobiculate; scutellum strongly convex and somewhat compressed laterally; propodeum with two pairs of longitudinal dorso­lateral carinae enclosing propodeal spiracles and rugose­areolate areas; basal and apical faces of propodeum distinct; forewing infuscated with two hyaline transverse bands, vein (RS+M)b distinctly longer than 2RS, C+Sc+R with a row of thick and erect dark setae; hind wing completely hyaline, veins cu­a and SC+R absent; males macropterous or brachypterous; hind coxa without basal tooth or tubercle; femora slightly swollen; metasoma petiolate, basal sternal plate 0.50 to 0.70 times as long as tergum I; tergum I with a smooth and shiny anterior area distinctly separated from posterior costate­rugose dorsal surface; ovipositor sheath 0.4 to1.2 times as long as metasoma.

Distribution: Neotropical. Argentina, Costa Rica and Peru. Marsh (1997; 2002) also mentions the genus for Mexico and Uruguay, although no references are provided.

Comments: There has been some confusion around the authorship of the genus. In the original description Jörgensen is mentioned as the collector of all the specimens, but it is not specifically stated that the description should be attributed only to Kieffer (Kieffer & Jörgensen 1910). Jörgensen (1916; 1917) published a translation of the original publication in which he stated “Galls from Mendoza are described in Gallen und Gallentiere aus Argentinien by Prof. Kieffer (Bitsch) and Prof. Jörgensen (Buenos Aires), published in Centralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde und Infektionskrankheiten ... All material has been collected by me, meanwhile descriptions belong to Dr. Kieffer”, but in subsequent pages he used both names for authorship when referring to each species. De Santis (1967) inverted the order of authors and attributed all the species to Jörgensen and Kieffer. Muesebeck (1958) and Marsh (2002) attributed the genus only to Kieffer.

In this paper the genus is attributed to Kieffer and Jörgensen since in the original description it is not explicit that it should be done otherwise. This criterion has been followed by Belokobylskij (1993) in his tribal classification of world Doryctinae, and by other authors when dealing with taxa described in Kieffer and Jörgensen publication: Cynipidae ( Díaz 1980; Loiácono & Díaz 2004), Cecidomyiidae ( Gagné 1994; 2004) and other braconids, such as Cecidospathius and Cecidobracon ( Wharton et al. 1997) .