Foenobethylus emiliacasellae Várkonyi& Polaszek, 2007

Várkonyi, Gergely & Polaszek, Andrew, 2007, Rediscovery and revision of Foenobethylus Kieffer, 1913 (Hymenoptera, Bethylidae), Zootaxa 1546, pp. 1-14 : 9-10

Foenobethylus emiliacasellae Várkonyi& Polaszek sp. nov.

( Figs. 2–3, 12–15 and 26–28)

Material examined. — HOLOTYPE ɗ: THAILAND, Chiang Mai, xii.99 – ii.00, R.A. Beaver, Malaise; Genitalia, subgenital plate and 8th sternum mounted separately in Canada balsam on a microscope slide. PARATYPES (6 ɗɗ): THAILAND, Chiang Mai, xii.99 – ii.00, R.A. Beaver, Malaise

Description of Male Holotype. —Length of body 3.1 mm.

FIGURE 12–15. Foenobethylus emiliacasellae n. sp.: 12) dorsal aspect of head, 13) dorsal aspect of mesosoma, 14) lateral aspect of mesosoma, 15) ventrolateral aspect of hind trochanter and femur.

Head.— Up to 1.36 times as long as wide, elongated in dorsal aspect, fairly strongly narrowing behind and evenly rounded towards occipital carina. The distance from the eyes to the occipital carina ca. 1.1 times the length of the eyes in dorsal aspect. Ocellar triangle forms a right angle at the anterior ocellus. Lateral ocelli are distributed closer to anterior ocellus than the maximum diameter of the latter. Occipital carina from hind ocelli at a distance of ca. 1.5 times of the maximum diameter of the latter. Surface of head finely coriaceous with sparse punctures.

Length-to-width ratios of antennomeres: scape: 3.2, pedicel: 1.5, 1st flagellomere: 1.7, 5th flagellomere: 1.6. Terminal palpomere of maxillary palps less than 3 times longer than wide.

Mesosoma.— With a length-to-depth ratio of 3.6 and length-to-width ratio of 2.4. Pronotum elongate and narrow anteriorly, without a horizontal shelf protruding above base of propleuron – the shelf is normally developed laterally. Length-to-width ratio of propodeal disc 1.15.

Radius with or without a node in its basal 1/7. Distal end of pterostigma continuing as an extremely short metacarpal vein. Fore femur greatly swollen, with a length-to-width ratio of ca. 2.0, and with a broad and oblique inner concavity, which frequently causes rolling up the fore femur as a spiral. Hind trochanter with a long and needle-like ventral spine. Hind femur with an oblique furrow beneath, with a long basal spine on its inner edge and with a small, broad but sharp-edged median tooth on the outer lateroventral edge.

Metasoma.— Eighth sternite with distal margin broadly and fairly shallowly emarginate, with sparse setae in its distal half. Subgenital plate with distal margin deeply emarginate, centrally setose.

Male genitalia.—Rather short and broad, distal part of parameres with relatively short setae. Volsella with digitus clearly visible. Aedeagus as illustrated.

Colour.— Brown. Basal four antennomeres, palps, mandibles, tarsi, fore tibiae, mid and hind tibiae subbasally and apically yellow.

Remarks.— A ribosomal DNA sequence of just over 700 bases was obtained from the 28S D2 region of this species by Peter Mayhew and colleagues. This sequence is presented in Appendix 1. Using the “blast” option in the NCBI Genbank database revealed the most similar sequence in that database to be that of a Pristocera species ( Bethylidae : Pristocerinae : 86% similarity), followed by that of Cephalonomia stephanoderis ( Bethylidae : Epyrinae : 84% similarity). The Genbank accession numbers for these two sequences are EF013049.1 and AJ302937.1 respectively. These are the only bethylid sequences in Genbank, and while being by no means conclusive, this result provides some supporting evidence for Foenobethylus being a pristocerine.

Etymology. — Named after Emilia Casella, of Hampstead, London, U.K.