Neoclarkinella nilamburensis Rema and Narendran.

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

Neoclarkinella nilamburensis Rema and Narendran.

Apanteles nilamburensis Sumodan & Narendran, 1990 ; 239–241 Neoclarkinella nilamburensis Rema & Narendran, 1994 ; 264–267

Diagnosis. Female (♀) length 2.9 mm, antenna 3.7 mm, fore wing 3.0 mm, ovipositor 1.4 mm.

Width of head 2x as its length in dorsal view; antennae longer than body; face punctate, pubescent with faint median longitudinal carina; ratio of eye length and malar space 9:2; vertex and clypeus punctate and pubescent; occiput smooth; OOL 0.75x POL; both upper and lower grooves of pronotum deep and crenulated, area between them punctate; mesoscutum coarsely punctate, pubescent; propodeum dull with a strong mid longitudinal carina and a transverse carina at basal one third; breadth of pterostigma shorter than vein r and equal to recurrent vein, vein r shorter than vein 1RS; vannal lobe of hind wing straight and sparsely setose, 2r-m present; hind coxa shiny and punctate longer than first three tergites combined; T1 at apex 0.43x as wide as base, aciculate with U-shaped depressed area basally; length of T2 0.23x length of T1, 0.6x of T3; T2 and T3 smooth and punctate apically; T3 with transverse depression basally remaining tergites smooth and laterally compressed; hypopygium 0.5x as long as hind tibia membranous and striated along medial line; ovipositor long and ovipositor sheath setose throughout.

Male. Characters similar to female.

Host. Unknown.

Distribution. India, Kerala.

Remarks. We could not examine the type specimen so the above diagnosis is based on the original description of Rema and Narendran (1996). Holotype and metatype are deposited in RMNH ( Achterberg & Narendran, 1997).

Discussion. Neoclarkinella nilamburensis is closely related to N. punctata in having dull propodeum, wide triangular scutellar lunules, but it differs in having aciculate nature of T1 (punctate in N. punctata ) margin of vannal lobe of hind wing straight (slightly convex in N. punctata ) vertex and clypeus punctate (vertex and clypeus indistinctly punctate in N. punctata ).