Apanteles impunctus Liu & Chen 2020, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Liu, Zhen
name: He, Jun-Hua
name: Chen, Xue-Xin
name: Gupta, Ankita
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Braconidae
Apanteles
Apanteles impunctus

description: Apanteles impunctus Liu & Chen, sp. nov.   
(Figures 91, 103)  
 Description. Holotype. Female. Body length 2.2 mm, fore wing length 2.7 mm.   
 Head. Transverse in dorsal view, nearly 1.9× as wide as long, 0.9× as wide as mesoscutum. Vertex between eye and posterior ocellus slightly shiny, rough but impunctate. Temple slightly shiny, not constricted. Face nearly 0.8× as high as wide, slightly shiny with close hairy bumps, inner margin of eyes strongly converged towards apex. Ocelli small, posterior tangent to anterior ocellus hardly touching posterior ocelli, distance between fore and hind ocellus distinctly larger than diameter of hind ocellus, POL:OD:OOL=6.5:2.0:3.5.Antenna weakly longer than body length, penultimate flagellomere 1.8× longer than wide.   
 Mesosoma. Length:width:height = 43.5:30.0:28.5. Disc of mesonotum dull, pubescent and mostly impunctate. Scutellar sulcus nearly straight, remarkably narrow with carinae in between. Scutellum highly shiny and polished entirely. Lateral polished field of scutellum hardly reaching up to half length of scutellum, carinae on anterior part of the field somewhat obsolescent. Propodeum dull, rough but virtually without any rugosity or punctation, only with whitish long hairs anterio-laterally. Mesopleuron slightly shiny, anterior part slightly uneven with extremely shallow punctures.   
 Legs. Hind coxa slightly shiny, uneven with trace of hairy punctures dorsally. Spines on outer side of hind tibia scattered. Inner spur almost half length of hind basitarsus, outer spur 1/3. Basitarsus of hind leg as long as tarsomeres 2–4 combined.   
 Wings. Pterostigma 3.0× as long as its widest part. Vein 1-R1 indistinctly longer than pterostigma, 5.0× as long as its distance from apex of marginal cell. Vein r arising from middle of pterostigma, perpendicular to it, nearly as long as width of pterostigma, 1.6× longer than 2-SR, indistinctly angled at junction, 2-M nearly as long as length of 2-SR, weakly longer than 1-SR, and as long as 2-SR+M, m-cu as long as 2-SR. First discal cell of fore wing 1.2× wider than high. Second submarginal cell of hind wing as wide as high. Vein cu-a curved. Hind wing broad, length of 1-M distinctly shorter than distance between its distal extremity and apex of vannal lobe, and vannal lobe beyond its widest part straight and hairless.   
 Metasoma. Weakly shorter than mesosoma (41.0: 43.5). T1 parallel-sided, 1.6× longer than hind width, concave at basal third, turned-over part shiny, smooth with satin-like sheen. T2 shiny and polished, 3.3× wider than long in the middle, slightly curved apically. T3 1.4× longer than T2. Tergites posterior to T2 highly polished, shiny, and pubescent. Hypopygium not longer than apex of metasoma. Ovipositor sheath 0.7× as long as hind tibia, hairs sparse and long.   
 Colour. Black. Tegula dark brown. Palpi light yellowish brown and spurs pale yellowish. Antenna and ovipositor sheath brown. Labrum and mandible dark brown. Legs dark brown to black, except apical fourth of fore femur with tibia and tarsus, basal fifth of mid and hind tibia yellowish, mid and hind tarsus fumous. Wing membrane hyaline, 1-R1, C+SC+R, and upper border of pterostigma brown, pterostigma, r, 2-SR and other alar veins pale yellowish.   
 Male. Unknown.   
 Material examined. Holotype: 1♀, Pingliang, Gansu, 1987.VI.15, Liu Shoumin, No. 875051.   
 Distribution. China (Gansu).   
 Etymology. The specific name “ impunctus ” derives from the Latin prefix “im” and adjective “punctate”, referring to the disc of mesonotum mostly impunctate.   
 Remarks. This species is very similar to A. alticella Liu & Chen, sp. nov., but differs in the following: T1 parallel-sided (strongly converged from base in latter); disc of mesonotum mostly impunctate (strongly punctate in latter); and distance between posterior ocelli distinctly longer than distance between one of them and eye-margin (not longer in latter).
description: Published as part of Liu, Zhen, He, Jun-Hua, Chen, Xue-Xin & Gupta, Ankita, 2020, The ater-group of the genus Apanteles Foerster (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from China with the descriptions of forty-eight new species, pp. 1-205 in Zootaxa 4807 (1) on pages 183-185, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4807.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/3927639