Amphibolips nassa Kinsey 1937

Pascual, E., Maldonado-Lopez, Y., Medianero, E. & Oyama, K., 2012, Revision of the Amphibolips species of Mexico excluding the “ niger complex ” Kinsey (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae), with description of seven new species, Zootaxa 3545, pp. 1-40 : 7

Amphibolips nassa Kinsey 1937

Amphibolips nassa Kinsey. Rev. entom., 7(4): 432

Type material: This species was described by Kinsey from a single female and a gall. The female holotype has not been located in the Kinsey collection, actually at the AMNH. A photograph of the gall was provided in Melika et al. (2011), but these researchers did not examine the adult type specimen (Melika pers comm.) .

Kinsey´s description of the species, with reference to the diagnostic characters of the forewing colour pattern and scutellum, was as follows: wings smoky yellow all over, with a heavy brown cloud on the anterior margin covering most of the basal, first cubital, radial cells and the anterior portion of the third cubital cell, without the clear break in this band found in some other Mexican species of Amphibolips .

Scutellum: mesoscutellum broad, square, deeply depressed anteriorly to form a wide, nearly smooth, and almost undivided foveal groove, median longitudinal depression of the mesoscutellum narrow and shallow, except posteriorly, where it cuts a wide, deep notch into the posterior edge of the mesoscutellum.

Gall: A rather large, globose but slightly spindle-shaped oak apple with a fine tip and base. Body of gall quite globose. A photography of the gall was provided by Melika et al. (2011).

Distribution: Michoacán, Purépero on Quercus mexicana and Q. castanea (= Q. serrulata ).

Comments

Based on its forewing pattern and gall, A. nassa is very similar to the recently described Amphibolips zacatecaensis Melika & Pujade-Villar 2011 . However, according to the descriptions of the two species, the mesoscutellum seems to be more deeply and widely emarginated in A. nassa . The galls of A. nassa and A. zacatecaensis are quite similar, but Melika et al. (2011) noted that the galls of A. nassa are more elongate and fusiform, with a hard lignified parenchyma, while the galls of A. zacatecaensis are globose, with a soft spongy parenchyma. In his key for the identification of the “ nassa complex”, Melika et al. (2011) mistakes the forewing pattern of A. nassa , in which, according to Kinsey’s description and illustration of the forewing, the heavy dark stripe or band along the anterior margin of the wing is not interrupted by any clear cross band. After our analysis, we consider A. nassa to be more similar to the new species A. oaxacae described here, with the two species being differentiated by their coloration, relative emargination of the mesoscutellum and shape of the gall.