Apanteles galleriae Wilkinson, 1932

Fernandez-Triana, Jose L., Whitfield, James B., Rodriguez, Josephine J., Smith, M. Alex, Janzen, Daniel H., Hallwachs, Winnie D., Hajibabaei, Mehrdad, Burns, John M., Solis, M. Alma, Brown, John, Cardinal, Sophie, Goulet, Henri & Hebert, Paul D. N., 2014, Review of Apantelessensu stricto (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, northwestern Costa Rica, with keys to all described species from Mesoamerica, ZooKeys 383, pp. 1-565 : 145

Apanteles galleriae Wilkinson, 1932

Apanteles galleriae Wilkinson, 1932: 139.

Type locality.

FRANCE, Montpellier ( Shenefelt 1972: 516).

Holotype.

♀, NMNH (not examined).

Description.

Whitfield et al. (2001) provided a comprehensive description and numerous black and white illustrations.

Molecular data.

Sequences in BOLD: 16, barcode compliant sequences: 12, haplotypes: 2 (but see Comments below).

Biology/ecology.

Solitary, parasitoid of early-instar larva of wax moths and emerges to spin its white cocoon and pupate well before the host larva reaches full size ( Whitfield et al. 2001). Hosts: Pyralidae , Achroia grisella , Achroia innonata , Galleria mellonella , Vitula edmandsii .

Distribution.

Worldwide. This is a cosmopolitan species that has been introduced to many countries inadvertently with the transport of honey bees ( Whitfield et al. 2001); it may occur in Guanacaste, owing to the commercial honey bee industry, but there is no evidence that it occurs in ACG.

Comments.

One of the sequences in BOLD (code: GBAH3182-07), was mined from GenBank and does not contain any information about its original source and /or sample identifier. It most likely represents a different species not related at all to Apanteles galleriae . In fact, blasting of that sequence reveals that its very close to the species Apanteles ensiger (Say, 1836). Because all other sequences of Apanteles galleriae represent the same haplotype, we here recommend that such a dubious sequence be excluded from further consideration and analysis when dealing with the species Apanteles galleriae .