Cosmocomoidea Howard, 1908

Aishan, Zhulidezi, Triapitsyn, Serguei V., Xu, Mei, Lin, Nai-Quan & Hu, Hong-Ying, 2016, Review of Cosmocomoidea (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) from China, with descriptions of two new species, Zootaxa 4085 (4), pp. 525-535 : 526

Cosmocomoidea Howard, 1908

Cosmocomoidea Howard 1908: 68 –69 (type species: Cosmocomoidea morrilli Howard , by monotypy); Huber 2015: 15 –22 (revived status, diagnosis, redescription, discussion, distribution, list of species in the world).

Gonatocerus (Cosmocomoidea) : Triapitsyn et al. 2010: 94 –95 (as a subgenus under Gonatocerus ); Triapitsyn 2013a: 117 –119 (taxonomic history, diagnosis, key to Palearctic species).

Diagnosis. Specimens of most species are relatively large for fairyflies, average body length more than 1 mm; subantennal sulci strongly convergent and close together at mouth margin; ocellar triangle with 2 setae; female antenna with funicle 8-segmented; pronotum divided into two abutting lobes; dorsellum triangular to rhomboidal; propodeum with two submedian carinae; fore wing often with a large bare area behind marginal vein.

Cosmocomoidea was erected by Howard (1908) with C. morrilli Howard as its type species. Annecke & Doutt (1961) classified it as a subgenus under Lymaenon Walker. Both Matthews (1986) and Huber (1988) treated Cosmocomoidea as the ater species group of Gonatocerus . Zeya & Hayat (1995) revised the Indian species of Cosmocomoidea also within the ater -group of Gonatocerus , as did Zeya & Khan (2012) and Manickavasagam & Rameshkumar (2013). Triapitsyn et al. (2010) and Triapitsyn (2013a, b) classified Cosmocomoidea as a subgenus under Gonatocerus and reviewed its species from the Neotropical, Palaearctic, and Nearctic regions, respectively. Huber (2015) divided Gonatocerus into several genera within the tribe Gonatocerini . In his classification, which we follow here, Cosmocomoidea is regarded as a valid genus, though phylogenetic relationships among the closely related genera of Gonatocerini remain largely uncertain and may require a combined morphological and molecular analysis to resolve them more clearly.