Aleiodes bimaculatus, Shimbori, Eduardo Mitio & Shaw, Scott Richard, 2014

Shimbori, Eduardo Mitio & Shaw, Scott Richard, 2014, Twenty-four new species of Aleiodes Wesmael from the eastern Andes of Ecuador with associated biological information (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Rogadinae), ZooKeys 405, pp. 1-81 : 18-21

Aleiodes bimaculatus sp. n. Figures 22-24

Description of holotype.

Female (holotype). Body length 5.6 mm; antenna length 6.4 mm; fore wing 5.4 mm.

Color. Mostly honey brown. Antenna brown, scape and pedicel honey brown as head; cheeks and palp light yellow; ocellar triangle brown; fore and mid coxa, and all trochanter and trochantellus whitish; metanotum and propodeum dark brown; metasoma dark brown dorsally with mid-apical pale yellow spots on T1 and T2; ovipositor sheaths brown. Wings hyaline with brown veins and stigma, parastigma contrasting darker–black.

Head. Antenna 44 segmented, apical flagellomere lanceolate, without pointed tip; malar space about 1.3 × longer than mandible basal width, and 0.6 × eye height; occipital carina complete; oral space moderate and circular, maximum width about equal to basal width of mandible; clypeus swollen; ocelli small, ocell–ocular distance 1.4 × diameter of lateral ocellus; in dorsal view temples almost as long as eye height; head sculpturing mostly granular, face coarsely granular to rugose, occiput smooth.

Mesosoma. Sculpturing mostly granulate; pronotum covered with wrinkles; mesopleuron mostly rugose otherwise granulate, wrinkles stronger on sternaulus area; metapleuron with rugosity posteriorly; propodeum rugose, with complete mid-longitudinal carina; notauli deep and mostly smooth anteriorly, with two or three crenulae, meeting on rugose area posteriorly; posterior margin of mesoscutum bordered by short carina just anterior to scutellar sulcus; scutellar sulcus with median carina plus one pair of lateral carina.

Wings. Fore wing: stigma 3.5 × longer than high; vein r 0.65 × vein 2RS, 1.2 × vein RS+Mb, and 0.7 × as long as vein m-cu; vein 3RSa about 0.5 × vein 3RSb, and as long as vein 2M; vein 1CUa 1.5 × vein 1cu-a; vein 1CUb 3.0 × vein 1CUa; vein 1M evenly slightly curved. Hind wing: m-cu indicated as short not tubular vein interstitial to vein r-m; vein M+CU 1.4 × longer than vein 1M; vein 1M 1.2 × vein r-m; RS smoothly curved at middle; vein M unpigmented; vein 2-1A present as a short stub.

Legs. Hind tibia without comb of modified setae; tarsal claw simple, with a comb of relatively long thin setae basally; hind coxa rugose dorsally; hind basitarsus 3.5 × longer than inner apical spur on hind tibia.

Metasoma. T1 and T2 rugose costate with granulate background; T3 longitudinally striate basally; remainder terga granulate coriaceous; mid-longitudinal carina complete from T1 throughout T2; ovipositor sheaths about as long as hind tarsomere II, T1 1.2 × longer than its apical width.

Paratype variation. Body length 5.0-6.0 mm; antennomeres 39-46; occipital carina is only very shortly interrupted in some paratypes, but never curved toward vertex; vein 2-1A of hind wing varying from short to absent. The patratypes from outside the YBS are distinctly smaller (body length 5.0-5.3 mm) than the type specimens from the YBS (5.4-6.0 mm), with fewer segments on antenna (39-40 vs. 43-46). The metasoma in this specimens is lighter than the holotype and paratypes from YBS: the apical terga beyond T3 are mostly honey yellow, and the spots on T1 and T2 are frequently larger, forming one large spot covering apical T1 and all T2 medially. We consider the specimens from Baeza as a geographical variant within Aleiodes bimaculatus sp. n. Since all but one females were collected at once and shows virtually none variation, the variation could be just an artifact. Further samplings could both confirm this hypothesis with some intermediate forms or support an alternative hypothesis (e.g. speciation process). The metasoma in one of the females from Manabí is almost entirely honey brown, the light spots are not contrasting but still visible.

Male. Body length 4.7-5.0 mm. Antennomeres 48-42. Considerable color pattern variation in males: antenna dark brown, pedicel brown, scape honey brown, face brown, hind coxa whitish, all tibia and tarsi darker, ocellar triangle black, metanotum dark brown as propodeum, T2 pale yellow spot varying from smaller than in female to covering most of the tergite, T3 also with pale yellow spot. The metasoma is narrower, T1 up to 1.4 × longer than its apical width; eyes in dorsal view 1.55 × longer than temple; occipital carina weak dorsally, barely interrupted at vertex. The males from Baeza follow the same pattern of the females, with the apical metasomal terga honey brown instead of dark brown, however the body length in these males is not distinctly shorter than the specimens from YBS.

Type material.

Type-locality: ECUADOR, Napo Province, Yanayacu Biological Station, Macucoloma trail, S00°35.9', W77°53.4', 2163 m, cloud forest, January 1-8, 2008, J. Simbaña col.

Type-specimen: Holotype female, point mounted. Top label: "ECUADOR: Napo Province / Yanayacu Biological Station / S00°35.9', W77°53.4' 2163m / 1-8 January 2007, J. Simbaña / Macucoloma trail, Malaise trap / NSF-BSI-07-17458, S.R. Shaw"; bottom label: "SRS - 00037". (UWIM)

Paratypes. 11 females and 2 males (UWIM), same locality as holotype, different date and/or method: 1♀, September 5, 2005, malaise trap (Pumayacu ridge); 1♀, March 1-6, 2006, hand collected at light sheet, G. Gentry col; 2♀, same data as holotype; 1♀, no date/method; 2♀, June 1-8, 2007, malaise trap; 1♀, June 10 - July 10, 2010, canopy malaise on bamboo, S.R. Shaw col; 1♀, December 3-10, 2007, malaise trap; 1♀, October 3-10, 2007, malaise trap; 1♀, August 3-10, 2007, yellow pan; 2♂ May 14, 2011, black light, N. Zikani col.; 2♂ May 10-20, 2011, gate pan trap, M. Bryant col. ECUADOR, 12 females and 7 males (CNC): 9♀ and 1♂, Napo, Baeza, 2000 m, February 1979, Mason; 1♀ and 3♂, Napo, 5km South Baeza, 1700m, February 9, 1983, Masner & Sharkey; 3♂, Napo, Baeza, 1900m, February 9, 1983; 2♀ Manabi, Montecristi, 400m, February 6, 1983, Masner & Sharkey.

Discussion.

Aleiodes bimaculatus sp. n. belongs to circumscriptus/gastritor species group. It resembles Aleiodes nubicola sp. n. and Aleiodes cacuangoi sp. n. because of the complete occipital carina and the small ocelli. Aleiodes bimaculatus sp. n. differs from these species by the honey brown body color, with propodeum and metasoma dark brown and two pale yellow spots on T1 and T2, while Aleiodes nubicola sp. n. and Aleiodes cacuangoi sp. n. are mostly black. The stigma is yellowish in Aleiodes bimaculatus sp. n., but brownish in Aleiodes cacuangoi sp. n. and light brown to whitish in Aleiodes nubicola sp. n., and the body larger, 5.0-6.0 mm length while Aleiodes cacuangoi sp. n. and Aleiodes nubicola sp. n. are shorter, with maximum body length of 4.6 mm.

Etymology.

From the Latin roots bi = two and macula = stain, refers to the two distinctive yellow spots on the dark brown metasomal terga of this species.