Aulosaphes Muesebeck 1935
Creators: name: Belokobylskij, Sergey A.
name: Manukyan, Andranik R.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Braconidae
Aulosaphes

description: Genus Aulosaphes Muesebeck, 1935
Aulosaphes Muesebeck, 1935: 248; Shenefelt 1975: 1140; van Achterberg 1995: 80; Belokobylskij 1998: 134; He et al. 2000: 675; Yu et al. 2016.
Type species: Rhyssalus unicolor Ashmead, 1905
Notes. Aulosaphes Muesebeck is relatively small extant genus with only ten known tropical and subtropical species from the hormiine tribe Lysitermini (Yu et al. 2016). The members of this tribe have never been recorded as fossils, so our find as a Eocene amber inclusion is the first record of a fossil from this genus..
The present amber specimen has a number of morphological differences from the type species of the genus Aulosaphes, Rhyssalus unicolor Ashmead, 1905, so the new species described here is placed in a new subgenus, Antiquasaphes Belokobylskij, subgen. nov.
Diagnosis of the genus. Head transverse, rather strongly narrowed posteriorly (dorsal view). Ocelli often arranged in almost equilateral triangle. Eyes glabrous. Hypoclypeal depression large and circular or suboval. Malar suture usually distinct. Occipital carina complete, fused ventrally with hypostomal carina upper base of mandible. Maxillary palpi 6-segmented, labial palpi 4-segmented. Mandible bidentate, but second tooth sometimes small. Antenna relatively slender, filiform or weakly setiform. Pedicel enlarged. First flagellomere not shorter than second flagellomere; apical flagellomere acuminate apically.
Mesosoma not or only weakly depressed dorso-ventrally. Pronotum anteriorly with flange. Mesonotum highly and curvedly elevated above pronotum. Notauli complete, deep, crenulate. Medial lobe of mesoscutum sometimes with medioposterior longitudinal sulcus. Precoxal sulcus deep at least medially, medial length, usually straight and at least partly crenulate. Prepectal carina distinct and complete. Propodeum without lateral tubercles, with areas distinctly delineated by carinae, areola variable.
Wings. Pterostigma rather wide. Radial (marginal) cell of fore wing not shortened. Radial vein (r) arising from, weakly before or weakly behind middle of pterostigma. Both radiomedial veins (2-SR and r-m) present. Recurrent vein (m-cu) distinctly postfurcal to first radiomedial vein (2-SR). Nervulus (cu-a) postfurcal. Parallel vein (CU1a) arising from about middle of distal side (3-CU1) of brachial (subdiscal) cell. Brachial (subdiscal) cell closed distally. Transverse anal veins (2A and a) absent. In hind wing, first abscissa of mediocubital vein (M+CU) weakly shorter than or almost equal to second abscissa (1-M). Submedial (subbasal) cell rather large. Recurrent vein (m-cu) present, curved, faintly pigmented.
Legs. Hind femur relatively slender or weakly thickened, elongate oval. Basitarsus of hind leg rather long, about 0.8 × as long as second-fifth segments combined.
Metasoma. First tergite wide and short, with distinct dorsope, laterope absent. Second and third tergites enlarged, strongly sclerotized, covered proceeding soft segments, with completely separated laterotergites, their spiracles situated near margin of dorsal part of tergites. Second suture deep, narrow, evenly curved. Third tergite on posterior margin with short lamella (border), usually distinctly serrate. Ovipositor medium size, distinctly shorter than metasoma, without any teeth or serration.
description: Published as part of Belokobylskij, Sergey A. & Manukyan, Andranik R., 2025, New fossil species from two genera of the subfamily Hormiinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) from Eocene Baltic amber, pp. 531-544 in Zootaxa 5590 (4) on pages 538-539, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5590.4.4, http://zenodo.org/record/14953515