Euscelinus sarawacus Westwood 1882
Creators: name: Saleh, Alaa T.
name: Gadallah, Neveen S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Braconidae
Euscelinus
Euscelinus sarawacus

description: Euscelinus sarawacus Westwood, 1882
(Figures 5 A-G, 6 A–E, 7A, B)
Euscelinus sarawacus Westwood, 1882, p. 26, sex not indicated.
Material examined. 1♀, 1♂.
Diagnosis. Female: Body length: 4.1 mm (excluding ovipositor).
Body dark brown to dark ferruginous (Figure 5A, B), with some paler areas (see Figures 5D, E, 6A, B, 7A); legs as in Figure 6C; antenna pale brown, darkened towards apex (Figure 5F). Forewing (Figure 6D) with pterostigma dark brown, pale yellow at base; antenna shorter than body, 0.65× as long as body, slender, with all flagellomeres distinctly longer than wide, 27-segmented; scape relatively short and swollen, 1.6× as long as wide, distinctly shorter than F1, 0.58× as long as F1, F1 coarsely rugose along its ventral basal two-thirds, smooth dorsally; anterior surface of mesoscutum conspicuously elevated or raised above pronotum (subvertical) when seen in lateral view, smooth and shiny anteriorly and laterally, coarsely rugose medially to posterior margin; notauli present anteriorly, crenulate, shallow posteriorly; fore tibia with a single row of three or more short, oblique, dark spines on dorsal surface near to middle; metafemur robust, swollen, 2.2× as long as its maximum width, with nine unequal whitish sharp teeth ventrally, of which third is the longest (Figure 6C); metasoma (Figure 7A) oval, non-petiolate; T1 1.5× as long as apical width, coarsely rugose, with pale baso-lateral protrusion, with two longitudinal median carinae that are widely separated at basal fourth and narrowly separated in the reminder; T2 wider than long, 0.57× as long as wide, with basal area finely rugose, rest of T2 and remaining tergites nearly smooth and shiny; ovipositor long, 1.1× as long as metasoma, minutely serrated along its whole length, more distinct along the black area.
Male. Body length: 3.44 mm.
Distinctly slenderer than the female, and differs from female in the following: body smaller and paler (Figure 5C), basal half of metatibia whitish; metasoma distinctly slender (Figures 5C, 7B); antenna 23-segmented (Figure 5G); F1 slightly shorter than F2 (Figure 5G); T1 1.64× as long as its apical width (Figure 7B); T2 0.7× as long as wide (Figure 7B); propodeal dorsal surface nearly smooth and shiny baso-laterally.
Distribution. Australia, India, Israel-Palestine, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, USA (Yu et al. 2016; Ghahari et al. 2022), Syria (new record).
Host records. Recorded as a parasitoid of several coleopteran hosts of the family Bostrichidae: Amphicerus bimaculatus on Punica granatum L. (Halperin 1986; Čapek 1992; present study), Dinederus minutus (Fabricius) on Bambusa sp. (Poaceae), Scobisia chevieri (Villa and Villa) on Ceratonia siliqua L. (Fabaceae), Sinoxylon ceratoniae (Linnaeus) on Dalbergia sisoo Roxb and Delonix regia RAF (Fabaceae), S. sexdentatus (Olivier) on Acacia sp. (Fabaceae) (Halperin 1986; Čapek 1992). In addition to Heterobostrychus aequalis (Waterhouse) (Beeson and Chatterjee 1935; Belokobylskij et al. 2004b), and Sinoxylon unidentatum (Fabricius) (Beardsley 1961; Belokobylskij et al. 2004b). Based on Gupta and van Achterberg (2022), this species has been reared from Mangifera indica Linnaeus (Anacardiaceae) by Sharma (1983, as Euremeros mangifera Sharma).
Comments. Euscelinus sarawacus is a new record for the Syrian fauna, reared from Amphicerus bimaculatus attacking P. granatum. Characters of the Syrian specimens agree with almost all diagnosis of Australasian specimens mentioned in Belokobylskij et al. (2004b), except for the following: antennal F1 nearly straight, slightly longer than F1 (Figure 5F) (curved, shorter than F 1 in the generic diagnosis); hind tibia without spines along its dorsal surface (with several thick spines along dorsal surface in the generic diagnosis); hind basitarsus about as long as following tarsomeres combined (Figure 6C) (0.6× as long as following tarsomeres combined in the generic diagnosis); vein 1 m-cu more or less interstitial (Figure 6D) (postfurcal in generic diagnosis); ovipositor slightly longer than metasoma (Figure 7A) (shorter than metasoma in the generic diagnosis).
It also agrees with Čapek’s (1992) characters of the Israel specimens; however, it differs in the following: only protibia of the Syrian specimens with a row of short setae along its surface (all tibiae of Israel specimens with such row of spines); male antenna 23- segmented (Figure 5G) (16–22-segmented in Israelian males); metasomal T 1 in male 1.64× as long as its apical width (Figure 7B) (1.8× in Israel males). It also agrees with Figure 3 (Čapek 1992, p. 193), except for the absence of the row of spines along dorsal side of metatibia.
The Syrian male greatly resembles Figure 4 of the Indian male (Gupta and van Achterberg 2022, p. 581).
description: Published as part of Saleh, Alaa T. & Gadallah, Neveen S., 2024, Parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Doryctinae) reared from grape cane borer beetle Amphicerus bimaculatus (Olivier) (Bostrichidae) inhabiting pomegranate trees Punica granatum L. (Lythraceae) in Syria, new records and new tritrophic associations, pp. 449-470 in Journal of Natural History 58 (13 - 16) on pages 455-459, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2024.2314967, http://zenodo.org/record/11059669