Alaptus, Westwood, 1839

Huber, John, 2009, The genus Dicopomorpha (Hymenoptera, Mymaridae) in Africa and a key to Alaptus-group genera, ZooKeys 20 (20), pp. 233-244 : 234-235

Alaptus group of genera

The Alaptus -group of genera is distinguished by at least one apomorphy: in both sexes the anterior scutellum is separated from the posterior scutellum by a transverse suture that sometimes divides the scutellum into two completely separate sclerites (Figs 3, 8, 14). Huber and Lin (1999) and Lin et al. (2007) give additional diagnostic features. Taking into consideration the changes in classification proposed here, the Alaptus group now contains the following five genera: Alaptus , Dicopomorpha , Dicopus, Kikiki , and Mimalaptus .

Mimalaptus , illustrated here by M. victoria (Girault) (Figs 7–11) [on a slide with another mymarid species (Fig. 7)], resembles Dicopomorpha in having a 7-segmented (rarely 6-segmented) funicle in females (Figs 9, 11), but differs by the posterior scutellum being clearly divided medially by a longitudinal suture (Fig. 8) and the posterior margin of the fore wing having a distinct lobe behind the venation (Fig. 10). Mimalaptus is currently known only from the Australian region (Noyes and Valentine 1989, Lin et al. 2007) but I have seen specimens from the several countries in the Oriental region and Japan (Honshu) in the Palearctic region. Once the fauna is better known it may be better to treat Mimalaptus as a subgenus of Dicopomorpha because the structure of the posterior scutellum appears to be the only unequivocal difference that separates it from Dicopomorpha . I have also seen a fossil specimen from Baltic amber (together with a second, larger, piece of amber in box G 3.910 Hymenoptera #BST03124, Geological- Palaeontological Institute and Museum, Göttingen, Germany), indicating that it is or was much more widespread.

Dicopus is also a worldwide genus that resembles Dicopomorpha in having a 7-segmented funicle in females, but is distinguished from it and Mimalaptus by an extremely narrow fore wing and ventrally directed mandibles that do not cross over when closed. Several workers had independently recognized that Kubja is probably a synonym of Dicopus but this was never published. The wings (Fig. 19), mandibles (Figs 13, 15), female antenna (Fig. 16), male antenna (Fig. 17), and general body shape and structure of the mesosoma (Figs 12, 14, 15) of the type specimens (2 females and 1 male, Fig. 18) of Kubja longipes Subba Rao are the same as for species of Dicopus so the synonymy is formalized here as Kubja , syn. n. and the type species is transferred to Dicopus as Dicopus longipes (Subba Rao) , comb. n.

While progress has been made in working out generic limits within the Alaptus group of genera, whose members are small even for Mymaridae , there is still uncertainty about generic limits. Further study of as many undescribed species, of Dicopomorpha and Alaptus in particular, is needed to determine if the current concepts and generic limits represent monophyletic lineages worthy of generic status.