Saphonecrus lithocarpi Pujade-Villar, Guo, Wang & Chen, 2015

SaphonecruS chinenSiS Tang & Schwéger, 2015 n. syn.

This species was described based on adult females reared from galls (Fig. 6d) collected on Lithocarpus harlandii . After the first author consulted the typical series deposited in ZAFU (12 paratypes) he noted that this series contains males and not only females, the correct sex of this series is 3 males and 9 females (1♂ & 1♀ deposited now in UB). The males differ from females in the following characters: antenna (Fig. 5c) with 15 antennomeres, antennal formula: 4.0/ 2.5/ 4.0/ 3.5/ 3.5/ 3.5/ 3.5/ 3.5/ 3.5/ 3.5/ 3.25/ 3.0/ 3.0/ 2.5/ 2.5; pedicellum shorter, 1.5 times as long as wide; F1 modified, slightly curved and more expanded distally than basally, 1.6 times as long as pedicellum; ratio of POL:OOL:LOL is 4:3:2 and relative lateral diameter of ocellus 2.0; head more massive in dorsal view around 2.0 times as long as broad, and smaller in size (1.5–1.6 mm, N= 2).

Saphonecrus lithocarpi belongs to a group of species characterized by having Lithocarpus as host galls. After consulting Schwéger et al. (2015a), the species and Saphonecrus chinensis Tang & Schwéger, 2015 appear to be the same species except for small difference in posterodorsal punctuation of the metasoma: absent in S. chinesis Schwéger et al. (2015a) and present in S. lithocarpi (Pujade-Villar et al., 2015) . Nevertheless, a small punctuation area is distinctly observable in S. chinesis (Figure 38, Schwéger et al., 2015a), similar to what was seen S. lithocarpi (Figure 1B, Pujade-Villar et al., 2015). We therefore conclude that the two species are the same, with Saphonecrus lithocarpi, which was described in September, being the valid species, while S. chinensis, which was described in December, being the junior synonym. According to the priority in publication date (NZC art. 23) we herein formally propose Saphonecrus chinensis Tang & Schwéger, 2015 as a n. syn. of S. lithocarpi Pujade-Villar, Guo, Wang & Chen, 2015 .