Triraphis baios Valerio

Valerio, Alejandro A. & Shaw, Scott R., 2015, Thirteen new Costa Rican species belonging to the genus Triraphis Ruthe (Braconidae: Rogadinae) with their host records, Zootaxa 3904 (4), pp. 501-540 : 505-506

Triraphis baios Valerio , sp. nov.

Description. Female. Body color: yellow, with antenna basal 1/3 brownish yellow as scape, pedicel, tarsal claws and telotarsus; head, mesonotum, metapleuron, fore leg, and remainder tarsomeres honey yellow as hind tibia and hind femur distal 2/3; second metasomal tergum whitish yellow. Fore wing: M+CU distal 1/3 and 1 – 1A distal 1/4 brownish yellow as C+SC+R; hind wing: union of veins 1M, r – m, 2M brownish yellow, remainder veins yellow. Wings hyaline, sometimes a light yellow coloration present. Body length = 4.29 – 5.21 mm; fore wing length = 4.28 – 5.57 mm.

Head: Head height/head length = 1.23 – 1.31; maximum height of compound eye/maximum width of compound eye = 1.43 – 1.53; distance between basal edges of tentorial pits and the basal area of toruli/Maximum width of face measured at dorsal edge of clypeus = 1.11 – 1.16; width of vertex/minimal distance between toruli and the medial ocellus = 2.31 – 2.67; width of oral opening/height of oral opening = 1.64 – 2.00; distance between tentorial pits = 0.16 – 0.21 mm; minimal distance between external edge of tentorial pits and compound eye = 0.06 – 0.08 mm. Antenna, flagellomere all longer than wide, between 35 – 38; malar space as wide as basal width of mandible; occipital carina present dorsally and divided (sometimes divided and narrow dorsally), not fused with hypostomal carina; median ocellus as big as Lateral ocellus; space between lateral ocellus black; ocell-ocular distance almost 1/ 2 lateral ocellus width.

Mesosoma: Length of mesosoma in dorsal view/width of mesosoma = 2.52 – 2.76; height of mesosoma = 1.03 – 1.09 mm; propleuron dorso-lateral area, basal areas with defined colliculate sculpturing, remainder nitid; notauli punctate, pits from smaller laterally to bigger medially, almost absent medially; medial longitudinal pit present, with fine longitudinal punctate sculpturing present; mesonotum distal 1/4 with confused colliculate sculpturing medially, remainder nitid; sternauli with fine and spaced striate sculpturing, not conspicuous as union with prepectal carina, area below nitid as remainder mesopleuron; mesopleuron dorso-lateral area with confused colliculate sculpturing and little large lineate sculpturing; metapleuron granulate, only ventral edge with few rugose sculpturing; propodeum, spiracles sub-circular; first lateral areas of propodeum with light areolate-rugulose and fine granulate sculpturing remainder with less defined colliculate sculpturing and spaced areolate-rugulose sculpturing present; medial carina 1/4 propodeum height; areola triangular; ventral tubercles present without carinae over them and densely granulate.

Legs: basal lobe of hind tarsal claws elongate and acute at tip.

Wings: fore wing: 1Cub/RS+Ma = 1.11 – 1.19; 3RSa/1RS = 3.42 – 3.80; pterostigma length/width = 2.00 – 2.43 –; r = 0.23 – 0.26 mm. hind wing: 1M/r – m = 1.94 – 2.00; 1A/cu – a = 2.25 – 2.33; m+cu = 0.56 – 0.65 mm; m+cu sub – interstitial with 2RS; 2RS straight; angle at union of veins 2RS – 2M acute; pterostigma inner 1/2 medially brownish yellow, remainder yellow.

Metasoma: Length of first metasomal tergum/width of first metasomal tergum = 1.08 – 1.18; length of second metasomal tergum/width of second metasomal tergum = 0.76 – 0.88; length of third metasomal tergum/width of third metasomal tergum = 0.33 – 0.45; basal width of first metasomal tergum = 0.32 – 0.38 mm; hypopygium = 0.35 – 0.47 mm. first metasomal tergum dorso – basal triangular area of first metasomal tergum open with carinae present, medial carina normal; first metasomal tergum lineate sculpturing as second metasomal tergum sculpturing; third metasomal tergum lineate sculpturing finer, closer, denser and less conspicuous than second metasomal tergum sculpturing, not reaching third metasomal tergum distal edge and less conspicuous medially; fourth metasomal tergum without fine lineate sculpturing.

Males. Similar to females.

Female holotype. Costa Rica, Limón, Guápiles, 400 m. 14/x/1995, Col. Priscilla Ch. Paratypes: 11 females, 3 males; 5 females, 1 male, same data as holotype; Guanacaste, ACG: sector Santa Rosa, Cafetal, 11/i/1992, Col. D.H. Janzen; 1 same data except sector and date, sector Santa Rosa, Casona Santa Rosa, 7/xii/1990; (4) Limón, Cariari, ii/1994, Col. M. Arguedas.

Holotype and paratypes have been deposited at the RMSEL; two paratypes deposited at MUCR and INBio.

Distribution. The altitudinal range of this species is from 10 – 400 m.; the type of forest occurring at the site of collection for some of the specimens were tropical moist/wet forest and tropical dry forest; other specimens were collected at a coffee plantation neighboring a secondary forest.

Biology. Specimens reared from some unidentified larvae feeding on Hieronima alchorneoides (Euphorbiaceae) , called “Pilón”; Napaea umbra (Riodinidae) feeding on Bromelia pinguin (Bromeliaceae) and Melanis sanguinea (Riodinidae) feeding on Albizzia adinocephala (Fabaceae) . It is a gregarious parasitoid. The reported ratio of sexes found for the first host was 5 females and 2 males; for the second host were observed 6 females and 1 male.

Comments. Currently there is an undescribed species of Triraphis very similar to T. baios but can be separated from it by the ocell-ocular distance divided by width of lateral ocellus that is smaller than or equal to 0.5x present in this underscribed species. The undescribed species will fully treated in a forthcoming publication.

Etymology. This species is named for the small size of the body; “ baios ” in Greek means small, little.