Eulophidae (Haliday, 1833)

Burks, Roger, Mitroiu, Mircea-Dan, Fusu, Lucian, Heraty, John M., Jansta, Petr, Heydon, Steve, Papilloud, Natalie Dale-Skey, Peters, Ralph S., Tselikh, Ekaterina V., Woolley, James B., van Noort, Simon, Baur, Hannes, Cruaud, Astrid, Darling, Christopher, Haas, Michael, Hanson, Paul, Krogmann, Lars & Rasplus, Jean-Yves, 2022, From hell's heart I stab at thee! A determined approach towards a monophyletic Pteromalidae and reclassification of Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera), Journal of Hymenoptera Research 94, pp. 13-88 : 13

Eulophidae

Discussion.

The family Eulophidae is not diagnosed here since its limits are not being adjusted, but some taxonomic changes have been carried out as a result of our studies. The Australasian tribe Platytetracampini was described in Entedoninae by Bouček (1988), placed there because of general resemblance to some Euderomphalini . Its placement has been treated as debatable in part because of the relatively large flagellomere count ( Bouček 1988; Gauthier, et al. 2000), and it was found to be the sister group of Anselmellini , in what is now Opheliminae , a phylogenetic analysis of 28S D2 ribosomal DNA by Gauthier et al. (2000) and Gumovsky (2002). We suggest that Platytetracampini should be treated as a tribe in Opheliminae new placement, because Platytetracampe Girault shares with other ophelimines the placement of fore wing admarginal setae on the ventral side of the marginal vein, and because this transfer renders Entedoninae more definable morphologically, agreeing better with Opheliminae . Although this placement of the admarginal setae is not unique in Eulophidae , we suggest that it may be locally informative for Opheliminae . More definitive placement awaits analysis of next-generation molecular data for Platytetracampe , which so far has not been available.

Boucekelimini is a morphologically distinctive group that was treated as an unplaced tribe in Eulophidae by Kim & La Salle (2005). Molecular data for this tribe have not been available, but based again on the placement of the admarginal setae on the ventral side of the marginal vein, and upon the similarity of the antenna of Boucekelimus Kim & La Salle (cf. fig. 2) and fore wing stigma shape ( Kim and La Salle 2005: figs 11, 12, 19, 20) with that of Ophelimus Haliday, we treat Boucekelimini as a tribe within Opheliminae new placement, again awaiting next-generation molecular data for further evaluation of the phylogenetic value of morphological features mentioned here.

Elasmus Westwood was treated in a separate family until molecular data ( Gauthier et al. 2000) suggested that it is part of Eulophinae . Elasmini was therefore reduced to tribe rank within Eulophinae . Rasplus et al. (2020) later found using next-generation UCE molecular data that Sympiesis Foerster is the sister group of Elasmus , rendering recognition of Elasmini problematic versus the now paraphyletic Eulophini , especially since Sympiesis is very similar to many other genera of Eulophini morphologically. Given that males of Elasmus have branched flagellomeres very much like those of Eulophini , we find the recognition of a separate Elasmini to be an unjustifiable misrepresentation of the evolutionary timing of the distinctive traits of Elasmus relative to the traits that are representative of Eulophini , and therefore Elasmini new syn. is a synonym of Eulophini .

Gyrolasomyiini was described as a separate tribe of Tetrastichinae by Bouček (1988). Molecular data have so far placed Gyrolasomyia Girault within Tetrastichini , with instead a Tetrastichus -group ( Rasplus et al. 2020) being the sister group of remaining Tetrastichinae : the Aprostocetus -group including Gyrolasomyia . Therefore, recognition of Gyrolasomyiini would necessitate recognition of a separate tribe for the Aprostocetus -group or synonymy of Gyrolasomyiini with the oldest available tribe name of the Aprostocetus -group. However, this is untenable due to the highly problematic morphological diagnosability of tetrastichine genera and potential tribes. We suggest that both uncertain phylogenetic relationships and the practical difficulties of diagnosing subordinate taxa make recognition of tribes in Tetrastichinae currently inadvisable, and therefore Gyrolasomyiini new syn. is a junior synonym of Tetrastichini .

Eupelmidae