Sericobracon puravida Zaldivar-Riveron & Shaw 2025, new species
Creators: name: Zaldívar-Riverón, Alejandro
name: Castañeda-Osorio, Rubén
name: Shaw, Scott R.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Braconidae
Sericobracon
Sericobracon puravida

description: Sericobracon puravida Zaldívar-Riverón & Shaw, new species
(Figs 5A–F).
Diagnosis. Sericobracon puravida sp. nov. can be distinguished from S. paulmarshi by the diagnostic features mentioned above for the latter species. It can be also distinguished from S. arimaensis, S. evansi and S. zunigai by having a mostly smooth mesopleuron (Figure 5D) (mostly coriaceous in the latter three species Figs 2D, 3B, 4D, 6D).
Description. Holotype female. Body size 2.9 mm, fore wing 2.5 mm. Colour: vertex and frons brown, area surrounding eyes honey yellow; temple gena and face brown to honey yellow; mesosoma mostly brown to dark brown; first metasomal tergite brown; second tergite brown medially, remaining area pale yellow; third to fifth tergites mostly brown, lateral area pale yellow; remaining tergites mostly pale yellow with median small, brown diffused patches. Wings hyaline, pterostigma and veins honey yellow. Legs pale yellow to honey yellow. Ovipositor honey yellow, strongly sclerotised at apex; sheaths brown.
Head: transverse in dorsal view, 2.5 × wider than its median length. Eye 1.3 × longer than wide; eye width 1.8 × longer than temple in dorsal view. Malar space 0.4 × eye height and as long as width of hypoclypeal depression; mandibles bidentate. Occipital carina complete and reaching hypostomal carina before the base of mandible; inner margins of posterior ocelli (POL) as long as the ocellar diameter (OD), 0.4 × shorter than distance between outer margin of posterior ocellus and eye (OOL). Vertex slightly striate, frons and temple smooth, frons slightly excavated, face slightly rugose, setose. Antennae broken, with 11 flagellomeres or less; first flagellomere about 4.0 × longer than wide, 1.3 × longer than second flagellomere.
Mesosoma: 1.7 × longer than high and 2.2 × longer than wide. Pronotal collar distinct, visible in dorsal view, smooth to slightly rugose, sparsely setose; pronotal furrow wide, deep and scrobiculate. Median length of mesoscutum 1.2 × its width (dorsal view); mesoscutal lobes coriaceous, with median mesoscutal lobe slightly projected upwards from lateral lobes; notauli wide, deep, scrobiculate, not joining, obscuring before the endo of mesoscutum in a longitudinally rugose area. Scutellar disc smooth to slightly acinose, prescutellar furrow with six transverse carinae. Mesopleuron mostly smooth; precoxal sulcus wide, deep, slightly scrobiculate, 0.6 × as long as mesopleuron; mesopleural sulcus wide, relatively shallow and scrobiculate, subalar sulcus deep and scrobiculate. Metapleuron rugose-areolate. Propodeum slightly rugose-smooth on median basal half, rugose-areolate on apical half, with a median longitudinal carina running along basal third, areola distinct and complete.
Wings: fore wing 2.9 × longer than wide. Pterostigma 3.2 × longer than wide and 1.5 × as long as R. Vein r 0.9 × as long as 3RSa, 0.2 × as long as 3RSb, and as long as vein r-m. Vein m-cu antefurcal to 2RS, vein RS+Mb present. First subdiscal cell open. Hind wing vein M+CU 0.8 × as long as 1M, m-cu slightly curved towards wing apex.
Legs: one missing, remaining fore tibia without row of spines along anterior margin. Legs mostly smooth to slightly acinose; hind coxa slightly striate ventrally.
Metasoma: first tergite short, 0.9 × as long as apical width, longitudinally costate. Second tergite longitudinally costate; suture between second and third tergites straight, distinct; remaining tergites mostly smooth and polished, slightly acinose apically. Ovipositor length 0.7 as long as metasoma.
Male. Unknown.
Biology. Unknown.
Etymology. The name of this species is formed as an arbitrary combination of letters and refers to the popular Costa Rican expression “¡pura vida!”, meaning “this is life!”, which originally comes from the mid-twentieth century Mexican film comedian “Clavillazo”.
Material examined. Holotype (CNIN IBUNAM). Female. Costa Rica: Puntarenas, Pen. Osa, 5 km Npto. Jiménez, 10, m. Malaise, vii, viii 1993. P. Hanson.
description: Published as part of Zaldívar-Riverón, Alejandro, Castañeda-Osorio, Rubén & Shaw, Scott R., 2025, Three new species and phylogenetic affinity of the neotropical genus Sericobracon Shaw (Braconidae: Doryctinae), pp. 171-185 in Zootaxa 5613 (1) on pages 178-180, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5613.1.9, http://zenodo.org/record/15216355