Caliroa vaccini Okutani 1965
Creators: name: Hara, Hideho
name: Ibuki, Shinichi
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Tenthredinidae
Caliroa
Caliroa vaccini

description: Caliroa vaccini Okutani, 1965
(Figs 2A, B, 3H, R, 4 I–K, 5E, 8A–D, 11J–L)
Caliroa vaccini Okutani, 1965: 30; Okutani, 1967: 96; Abe & Togashi, 1989: 547; Naito et al., 2004: 28; Taeger et al., 2010: 367; Smith & Moisan-De Serres, 2017: 637, 640.
Redescription: female and male. Length 3.5–4.5 mm in female, 3.5–4.5 mm in male. Black, shiny with colorless reflection (Fig. 2A, B). Labrum dark brown to black. Mandible black, apically reddish brown. Palpi yellow brown, basally darkened. Legs yellow to yellow brown; coxae dark brown except for apices; femora except for trochantelli basally darkened or not; hind tibia and tarsus each darkened apically; tibial spurs and claws yellow to brown. Wings brown to dark brown on basal two thirds, colorless transparent on apical third; veins and stigma brown to black.
Postocellar area 1.5–1.8 × as wide as length behind lateral ocellus, without anterior groove. Clypeus shallowly emarginated ventrally (Fig. 3H); depth of emargination 0.15–0.2 × median length of clypeus. Malar space slightly wider than or about twice as wide as facet of eye in female, about as wide as or slightly wider than facet of eye in male. First flagellomere 0.6–0.7 × as long as second and third flagellomeres combined (Fig. 3R); apical four flagellomeres combined 1.6–1.7 × as long as first flagellomere in female, 1.8–2.1 × in male. Forewing with joint of vein Rs and crossvein 2r-rs located at apical 0.12–0.35 of anterior margin of cell 1Rs2 (Fig. 2A); basal corner of cell 1M slightly acute, sometimes right-angled. Hind wing of female with joint of vein 1A and crossvein cu-a located basal to or apical to or at apex of cell 1A (Fig. 4I, J); crossveins 2r-m and m-cu absent, often both or either of them present. Hind wing of male without marginal vein (Fig. 4K); joint of vein 1A and crossvein cu-a located at or apical to apex of cell 1A; apex of cell 1A widely separated from wing margin; crossveins 2r-m and m-cu absent.
Punctures mostly minute or inconspicuous. Head and thorax mostly smooth. Mesoscutellum posterolaterally with one or two relatively large punctures along posterior margin (Fig. 5E). Mesoscutellar appendage smooth and glabrous, usually with some setae on posterolateral area. Dorsum of abdomen smooth.
Lance (Fig. 8C) with dorsal margin slightly and angularly serrate apically. Lancet (Fig. 8 A–D) with 14–15 serrulae; ctenidia pale, ventrally extending near level of base of serrula; middle serrulae rather shallow, with two to four anterior and four to five posterior pointed teeth; areas between middle serrulae distinctly convex, narrower than adjacent serrula.
Male genitalia (Fig. 11 J–L) in ventral view with harpe widest near base, straight or slightly concave on lateral margin and roundly convex on medial margin. Penisvalve apically hooked.
Material examined. Type material examined. Complete type series: 7♀ (one of these most likely the holo- type; see explanation below), “Tamba, Sasayama, [Sunoki (in Japanese; = Vaccinium smallii A.Gray var. glabrum Koidz.)], em. 11-VII-1960, T. Okutani”; 5♀ 5♂ (paratypes) with the same label.
In the sawfly collection of the Kobe University where Okutani’s material had been housed (now kept in the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tsukuba), there are no specimens labeled as the type of C. vaccini, but we have found a group of the above 12 females and five males agreeing with the statement on the type series in the original description, “Types: 12♀♀ (including holotype) and 5♂♂, 11-vii-1960 emerged from the larvae reared and collected at Sasayama, Hyogo ”. They disagree with the original description in the shape of a clypeus and the host plant. Okutani (1965) described that “clypeus truncate” and “Food-plant: Vaccinium Oldhami Miq., Ericaceae ”. All the 17 specimens have the clypeus slightly but distinctly emarginated (Fig. 3H). The host plant written on their labels is “Sunoki [= Vaccinium smallii var. glabrum]”. However, we believe they are the type series of C. vaccini. The difference between Okutani’s description and our observation on the shape of a clypeus is not significant. Okutani did not mention any host plant of C. vaccini other than V. oldhamii in his publications on this species (Okutani, 1965, 1967). It is reasonable to assume that Okutani realized V. smallii var. glabrum was a misidentification after labeling the 17 specimens, but did not change their labels. It would be impossible to select the holotype from the 12 females. The variations that Okutani (1965) mentioned are only as follows: “Body including antennae black all over (in some paratypes tegulae dark brown)” and “Hind wing without middle cell (in some paratypes with a cell)”. However, the difference in color of a tegula is subtle, and some females have an incomplete or rudimentary crossvein 2r-m or m-cu in a hind wing, namely an imcomplete or opened middle cell. We treat five females with a complete crossvein 2r-m or m-cu in either hind wing as the paratype and other seven females as indeterminate whether they are the holotype or paratype.
Other material examined. JAPAN: HONSHU—Hyogo Pref.: 5♀ 1♂, Takarazuka, em. 18. VII. 1975, Host: Vaccinium oldhamii, T. Okutani; 1♀, same data but, Takarazuka, Nishitani; 2♀, same data but, Nishitani.
Distribution. Japan: Honshu (Okutani, 1965).
Bionomics. Host plants: Ericaceae: Vaccinium oldhamii Miq. (Okutani, 1965, 1967).
Remarks. Three species, C. vaccini, C. annulipes and C. dionae Smith & Moisan-De Serres, 2017, are known to be associated with Vaccinium in Caliroa (Smith & Moisan-De Serres, 2017). Caliroa vaccini and C. annulipes have basally dark and apically transparent wings, but C. dionae has uniformly transparent wings. Caliroa vaccini has a predominantly yellow hind leg (Fig. 2B) and a shallowly emarginated clypeus (Fig. 3H), whereas C. annulipes has a predominantly black hind leg with the basally white tibia and tarsus (figs 11, 18 in Lacourt, 2002; photos in Taeger et al., 2018) and a deeply emarginated clypeus (fig. 2F in Hara, 2011). The ovipositors of these two species are very similar, but the middle serrulae of a lancet of C. vaccini are shallower than and more widely separated from each other than those of C. annulipes (compare Fig. 8 A–D with Fig. 8I and fig. 25 in Lacourt, 2002).
Caliroa vaccini is also similar to C. aizankei, C. ouensis and C. staphyleae in eastern Palearctic and Oriental species, but it is distinguished from those three by the key above.
In the key to western Palearctic species by Lacourt (2002), C. vaccini goes to the couplet 2 or 6, but does not agree with either line in both couplets.
In the key to Nearctic species by Smith (1971), the female of C. vaccini goes to the couplet 9 containing the females of C. liturata MacGillivray, 1909 and C. petiolata Smith, 1971 or the couplet 11 containing the females of C. labrata MacGillivray, 1909 and C. obsoleta (Norton, 1867), but it is distinguished from C. liturata, C. petiolata and C. obsoleta by the apical four flagellomeres combined distinctly longer than a first flagellomere [about as long as in the latter three] and from C. labrata by the forewing basally dark and apically transparent [uniformly, lightly infuscated in C. labrata]. The lancets of these five species are different (compare Fig. 8 A–D with figs 65, 66, 69 and 74 in Smith, 1971). In Smith’s key, the male of C. vaccini goes to the male of C. cerasi, but these two males are easily distinguished as stated in the key above.
description: Published as part of Hara, Hideho & Ibuki, Shinichi, 2020, Caliroa slug sawflies of Japan (Hymenoptera, Tenthredinidae), pp. 301-333 in Zootaxa 4768 (3) on pages 316-318, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4768.3.1, http://zenodo.org/record/3783994