Grotea Cresson, 1864

Zuñiga, Ronald & Hanson, Paul, 2025, Three new species of Labeninae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) from Costa Rica, Zootaxa 5728 (3), pp. 579-587 : 582

Genus Grotea Cresson

Grotea is a New World genus comprising 31 described species ( Mazón et al. 2024), six of which are known from Costa Rica (Gauld 2000), plus the new species described below. Unlike Apechoneura and Labena , species of Grotea lack the specializations of the hind legs and metasoma for manipulating the ovipositor while drilling into hard wood, and instead oviposit into stems containing nests of solitary bees ( Colletidae , Megachilidae , Apidae-Xylocopinae); the Grotea larva then consumes both the bee larva and the pollen reserves (Gauld 2000). For example, a pupa of an undetermined species of Grotea was found in the nest of Chilicola deborahae González ( Colletidae : Xeromelissinae ) in the Colombian Andes at an elevation above 3000 m ( González & Giraldo 2009). The authors state that the cell containing the Grotea pupa was twice the size of cells containing bees, which indicates that the parasitoid larva consumed the contents of two cells. This finding confirms previous observations on the biology of Grotea , and also greatly expands the previously documented elevational distribution of Labeninae . This species was later described as Grotea villosissima Herrera-Flórez ( Herrera-Flórez 2014) .