Aprostocetus Westwood, 1833

Singh, Sudhir, Kumar, Arvind & Kaneria, Manish, 2022, Description of five new eulophid species (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) associated with leaf vein galls of Madhuca longifolia (J. Koenig) (Sapotaceae) in India, Zootaxa 5129 (1), pp. 1-36 : 12

Genus Aprostocetus Westwood

Aprostocetus Westwood, 1833: 444 . Type species, Aprostocetus caudatus , by monotypy.

For more complete lists of synonymies see Graham (1987), Bouček (1988), LaSalle (1994) and Noyes (2019).

Aprostocetus is the largest and most diverse genus in the subfamily Tetrastichinae with about 813 described species worldwide ( Noyes 2019). Aprostocetus species parasitize a wide variety of hosts, which are often insects inhabiting a variety of plant galls, including Diptera , Hymenoptera , Coleoptera , Coccoidea and even eriophyid mites and nematodes ( Graham 1987, La Salle 1994). Species in the genus exhibit extensive biological and morphological diversity ( La Salle et al. 2009) and it has therefore been subdivided into six subgenera ( Graham 1987, La Salle 1994). Generic keys including Aprostocetus are available for Australasia ( Bouček 1988), North America (LaSalle 1994, Schauff et al. 1997), Europe ( Graham 1987) and India ( Narendran 2007) but keys to species are available only for the European ( Graham 1987) and Indian ( Narendran 2007) fauna.

Both species of Aprostocetus reared from leaf vein galls of M. longifolia are found to be new and described below. They can most suitably be assigned to subgenus Aprostocetus in the key by Graham (1987) but have affinities to other subgenera; these are discussed under the ‘comments’ section of each species.