Apenesia levis Kieffer, 1904

Alencar, Isabel D. C. C. & Azevedo, Celso O., 2020, Revision of the world Apenesia Westwood (Hymenoptera, Bethylidae), Zootaxa 4724 (1), pp. 1-72 : 29-30

Apenesia levis Kieffer, 1904

( Fig. 26D )

Apenesia levis Kieffer 1904 , 41: 364–367. ♀; Kieffer 1908, 76: 25 (catalog); Kieffer 1914, 41: 392, 393–394; Gordh & Móczár 1990, 46: 205 (catalog).

Diagnosis. Female. Length 4.4 mm. Color. Body castaneous. Mandible with three apical teeth, uppermost small. Clypeus short with apical margin of median lobe concave, median carina absent. Eye gray, oval, with about 13 facets. Malar space longer than eye length. Frons polished, punctures small and very sparse. Head subquadrate with sides subparallel, vertex slightly convex, 1.1 × as long as wide. Dorsal pronotal area with sides parallel, anterior margin with median emargination. Maximum width of metapectal-propodeal complex 1.67 × its minimum width. Mesopleuron with carina dividing dorsal and lateral faces. Mesotibia strongly spinose. Metasoma longer than head and mesosoma together, petiole short.

Material examined. Holotype ♀: [ SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE], Is. Principe, Roca Inf. D. Henrique, I– IV.1901, 100– 300m. L. Fea ( MSNG).

Comments. Below locality labels the following labels are also attached on the holotype “Typus// Apenesia laevis K.// laevis Kieff. // Syntypus ♀, Apenesia , levis, J. J. Kieffer, 1904 // Museo Civico di Genova”. These labels were added to the specimen when Dr. Poggi organized the Kieffer collection in MSNG (personal communication). Another apterous female in MSGN with identical locality label to Apenesia levis received an extra label “ Syntypus ♀, Apenesia , levis, J. J. Kieffer, 1904 // Museo Civico di Genova” when Dr. Poggi was organizing Kieffer’s Bethylidae collection. Kieffer (1904). However, he described this species based on a unique specimen. In this paper, whenever Kieffer described species based on more than one specimen he stated it explicitly in material examined. Further, the second exemplar with a syntype label of A. levis is actually belongs to Sclerodermus with large developed eyes, although ocelli are obliterated. Here we conclude that the holotype examined by Kieffer was clearly the Apenesia redescribed in this study. The other specimen was incorrectly labeled and both were wrongly labeled as syntype.

Distribution. Afrotropical ( São Tomé and Príncipe).

Figures

FIGURE 26. Body. A. Apenesia dominica; B. Apenesia flavipes; C. Apenesia formosa; D. Apenesia levis, E. Apenesia nigra; F. Apenesia proxima; G. Apenesia substriata; H. Apenesia unicolor; I. Apenesia vaurieorum. (Scale 250µm).