Stethynium? empoascae Subba Rao, 1966

V. Triapitsyn, Serguei, Adachi-Hagimori, Tetsuya, F. Rugman-Jones, Paul, Barry, Adema, Abe, Aoba, Matsuo, Kazunori & Ohno, Kazuro, 2019, Egg parasitoids of the tea green leafhopper Empoascaonukii (Hemiptera, Cicadellidae) in Japan, with description of a new species of Anagrus (Hymenoptera, Mymaridae), ZooKeys 836, pp. 93-112 : 100-103

Stethynium? empoascae Subba Rao, 1966 Figure 6

Stethynium empoascae Subba Rao, 1966: 189, 191, plate V [the figures are mislabeled as " Lymaenon empoascae "]. Holotype female, Delhi, India [NPC] (not examined).

Stethynium triclavatum Enock: Huber 1987: 829 (synonymy).

Stethynium empoascae Subba Rao: Triapitsyn 2002: 10-11 (resurrection as a valid species, taxonomic history, diagnosis, distribution, hosts, comments).

Mymaridae sp. B (resembling Anagrus ): Ojima et al. 2010: 38-41 (egg parasitoid of tea green leafhopper and its population dynamics in Kochi Prefecture, Shikoku Island, Japan), 44 (photographs).

Material examined.

JAPAN, Kyushu Island, Miyazaki Prefecture, Nobeoka City, Kitakata, Kita 1 field (from parasitized eggs of E. onukii on tea plant, Camellia sinensis ): collected 20.x.2017, emerged 27.x.2017, A. Abe [1 female, UCRC]; collected 20.x.2017, emerged 23.x.2017, A. Barry [1 female, UCRC]; collected 20.x.2017, emerged 30.x.2017, A. Barry [2 females, BLKU, UCRC]; collected 20.x.2017, emerged 31.x.2017, A. Barry [1 female, UCRC]; collected 20.x.2017, emerged 1.xi.2017, A. Abe [1 female, UCRC].

Distribution.

Australia (Queensland) ( Triapitsyn 2002), India ( Subba Rao 1966), and Japan (new record).

Hosts.

Cicadellidae : Amrasca biguttula (Ishida), Austroasca alfalfae (Evans),? Empoasca sp., and Jacobiasca lybica (de Bergevin & Zanon) ( Triapitsyn 2002), as well as Empoasca (Matsumurasca) onukii Matsuda (new record).

Comments.

The photographs of " Mymaridae sp. B" provided in Ojima et al. (2010) leave no doubt that their specimens belonged to both sexes of a Stethynium sp., which almost certainly were conspecific with ours from the same genus.

As discussed by Triapitsyn (2002), S. empoascae is extremely similar morphologically to usually lighter-colored specimens of Stethynium triclavatum Enock to the extent that it may be impossible to distinguish them in some countries (like China, Egypt, India, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, etc.) where both species can potentially occur. Yet, females of S. empoascae from Australia and India, which could be a different, more subtropical and tropical species, seem to be slightly different from the majority of the European and North American specimens of S. triclavatum , which supposedly occurs in the countries with a more temperate climate ( Triapitsyn 2002). Ultimately, molecular studies comparing freshly preserved specimens from Australia, Europe, India, Japan, and North America (now lacking) would need to be conducted to confirm separation of these two nominal species or, otherwise, provide genetic evidence of their possible conspecificity. At this point, however, we can only tentatively assign our specimens to S. empoascae based on some of the very minor morphological features mentioned in Triapitsyn (2002) as well as the fact that they were collected in Japan on the two islands with a subtropical climate. To facilitate recognition of this species, we provide illustrations of its female antenna (Fig. 6a), mesosoma and metasoma (Fig. 6b), and a pair of wings (Fig. 6c).