Lonchidia Thomson, 1862

van Noort, Simon, Buffington, Matthew L. & Forshage, Mattias, 2014, Review of Afrotropical Figitinae (Figitidae, Cynipoidea, Hymenoptera) with the first records of Neralsia and Lonchidia for the region, ZooKeys 453, pp. 37-69 : 44

Taxon classification Animalia Hymenoptera Figitidae

Lonchidia Thomson, 1862

Lonchidia Thomson, 1862: 413. Type-species: Figites maculipennis Dahlbom, 1842, by subsequent designation.

Diagnosis.

Small, rather slender, and more or less strongly pubescent figitines, easily recognised by the confluent scutellar foveae. Pubescence is dense on patches on the sides of the large metasomal tergite, as a collar on the pronotum, on the propodeum, and rather dense also on metapleura and metacoxae. The marginal cell of the forewing is characteristically short, and the antennae in females end with an enlarged apical flagellomere.

Distribution.

Mostly a Holarctic genus, here reported for the first time from the Afrotropical region. Afrotropical records: South Africa.

Biology.

No host records exist. Hosts are expected to be saprophagous Brachycera larvae, but these wasps appear less directly associated with decomposing substrates like dung and carrion than many other figitines. Species in North America are frequently collected in pasture land or meadow, in close approximation to domesticated bovines (Buffington, pers. obs.)

Comments.

The only Afrotropical specimen seen so far is from South Africa and may be an accidental introduction. It corresponds to a form present in Europe, which is currently considered as belonging to Lonchidia clavicornis Thomson, but which differs from the type specimen in some minor respects. Further studies may possibly show that this is a separate, currently unnamed, species.