Zelomorpha Ashmead, 1900

Meierotto, Sarah, Sharkey, Michael J., Janzen, Daniel H., Hallwachs, Winnie, Hebert, Paul D. N., Chapman, Eric G. & Smith, M. Alex, 2019, A revolutionary protocol to describe understudied hyperdiverse taxa and overcome the taxonomic impediment, Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 66 (2), pp. 119-145 : 119

Zelomorpha Ashmead, 1900

Type species.

Zelomorpha arizonensis (by monotypy) ( Ashmead 1900).

Diagnosis.

Zelomorpha can be distinguished from all other Agathidinae genera by the following combination of morphological characters: fore tarsal claws cleft and not pectinate; foretibial spur shorter than first tarsomere; ovipositor shorter than half the length of the metasoma; frons bordered by carinae; hind trochantellus with one or two longitudinal ridges; notauli variable, usually distinct; gena not elongate.

Biology.

The species of Zelomorpha are koinobiont solitary endoparasitoids of free-living, late instar medium-small Lepidoptera larvae ( Sharkey 1997). Larvae emerge from pre-pupal caterpillars after the caterpillars have spun their cocoons. The parasitoid larvae then spin pale silk cocoons within the host cocoons, next to the host cadavers.

Distribution.

Zelomorpha occur only in the New World, from the southern USA to Argentina and are primarily Neotropical ( Sharkey et al. 2006; Sharkey and Chapman 2017).

Species richness.

Including the fifteen new species described here, there are 67 described species of Zelomorpha ( Yu et al. 2016).