Antron Kinsey, 1930

Melika, George, Nicholls, James A., Abrahamson, Warren G., Buss, Eileen A. & Stone, Graham N., 2021, New species of Nearctic oak gall wasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae, Cynipini), Zootaxa 5084 (1), pp. 1-131 : 74-75

Antron Kinsey, 1930 , re-established genus

Ten species of Antron were listed for America north of Mexico by Burks (1979) and Lyon (1996) subsequently described three more species from the US southwest; all these species induce their galls on Quercus section Quercus oaks. One species, Atrusca clavuloides ( Kinsey, 1930) , was transferred to Xanthoteras Ashmead, 1897 by Dailey & Menke (1980) and subsequently to Atrusca by Melika & Abrahamson (2002). Melika & Abrahamson (2002) also erroneously synonymized the genus Antron with Cynips ( Linnaeus, 1758) , although only formally transferred eight of the 12 species then recognized in this genus from the USA. Pujade-Villar & Ferrer-Suay (2015) followed this synonymisation by transferring the 23 Mexican species originally described in Antron to Cynips . However, more recent molecular data have shown that the synonymisation of Antron within Cynips was incorrect, with Nearctic species formerly in Antron not clustering with the true European Cynips ( Nicholls et al. 2017, Nieves-Aldrey et al. 2021). Hence, we formally re-establish the genus name Antron Kinsey, 1930 comb. rev., while recognizing that the limits of this genus are still uncertain and require revision. Preliminary molecular analyses (James Nicholls, unpublished data) show that the North American Antron species are separated into two distinct clades, one of which clusters with some Sphaeroteras species. Thus, a detailed revision of all species from both genera is necessary to establish the true limits of the two genera.

Herein we describe two new species in this genus, both with Quercus section Quercus species as host plants.