Neoclarkinella punctata Ahmad, Pandey, Haider and Shujauddin

Veena, T., Ranjith, A. P., Santhosh, S. & Kishore, Lambert, 2014, Review of the Oriental genus Neoclarkinella Rema and Narendran, 1996 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae, Microgastrinae) with the description of two new species from India, Zootaxa 3857 (3), pp. 423-432 : 430-431

Neoclarkinella punctata Ahmad, Pandey, Haider and Shujauddin

Neoclarkinella punctata Ahmad, Pandey, Haider & Shujauddin, 2005 ; 208–209.

Diagnosis. Female (♀) length 2.6 mm, fore wing 3.0 mm.

Head oval in anterior view; clypeus, vertex and temple indistinctly punctate; malar space about as long as basal width of mandible; face about as long as wide, indistinctly punctate, pilose with a median longitudinal carina; frons concave smooth and shiny; OOL 0.75x as long as POL; occiput smooth; mesoscutum depressed posteriorly at imaginary course of notauli, strongly punctate with hairs and sparsely punctate apically; mesopleuron medioposteriorly smooth, rest of the area coarsely punctate; propodeum covered with white pilosity, dull with a strong longitudinal carina and transverse carina at basal one third; pterostigma 3.3x as long as wide; R1 1.3x as long as pterostigma; r 1.2x as long as m-cu, 1.1x as long as pterostigma; hind wing with vannal lobe slightly convex and sparsely pilose, 2r-m present; hind coxa large virtually smooth, indistinctly punctate; hind tibia 1.1x as long as hind femur; T1 3.8x as long as wide, tapering apically, basal half with broad U-shaped area and punctate apically, pilose; T2 subtriangular, smooth and posterior margin convex; hypopygium about half as long as metasoma, folded and striate medially; ovipositor sheath 0.61x as long as hind tibia, pilose.

Male. Similar to female except length 2.4 mm.

Host. Unknown.

Distribution. India, Uttar Pradesh.

Remarks. We couldn’t examine the type and the above diagnosis is based on the original description of Ahmed et al. (2005). Holotype and paratypes are deposited in ZDAMU.

Discussion. The species closely resembles Neoclarkinella narendrani in having punctate nature of T1, length of hind tibia 1.1x length of hind femur; but differs in the following characters: T1 subtriangular without lateral elevation (T1 triangular with lateral elevation in N. narendrani ), T1 3.8x as long as its width apically (length of T1 below 3x its width in N. narendrani ); clypeus, face, vertex indistinctly punctate (distinct punctuation in N. narendrani ).