Habrobracon hebetor Say 1836
Creators: name: Gadallah, Neveen S.
name: Edmardash, Yusuf A.
name: Mansour, Amany N.
name: Imam, Ahmed I.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Braconidae
Habrobracon
Habrobracon hebetor

description: Habrobracon hebetor Say, 1836
Fig. 8B
Material examined: 1♀, Kharga Oasis (New Valley) [25°14’02.8”N 30°31’32.2”E], May, 2022, blue pan trap in V. faba intercropped with B. napus.
Diagnosis. Female body colour predominantly dark brown, with head orange except black in the following areas: most of lower face extending to between antennal bases and a smaller rounded marking in the middle of upper face, ocellar triangle, posterior margin of head; antenna entirely dark brown, with pale antennal bases; mesoscutum black, with indistinct orange notauli, orange laterally encircling humeral plate; metasoma entirely dark brown; legs dark brown with yellow to orange markings; ovipositor pale yellow, ovipositor sheath dark brown. Fore wing with pterostigma of fore wing entirely and uniformly pale brown.
Antenna slightly shorter than body, with 14 antennomeres; vertex with short, erect setae (when seen from lateral aspect), reaching ocellar triangle; fore wing 3-SR about as long as vein r; metasomal T 3-5 impunctate; ovipositor sheath 0.76× as long as hind tibia.
Distribution in the MENA: Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey. It is a cosmopolitan species occurring in different parts of the world (Yu et al. 2016).
Comments: A cosmopolitan species occurring in different parts of the world (Yu et al. 2016). The polyphagous gregarious ectoparasitoid H. hebetor Say is recorded as being a parasitoid of several lepidopterous species of the families Depressariidae, Gelechiidae, Noctuidae, Nolidae, Oecophoridae, Papilionidae, Pieridae, Pyralidae, Tineidae, Tortricidae and Yponomeutidae (Yu et al. 2016). It is, like H. brevicornis, an important potential biocontrol agent attacking the larval stages of a wide range of lepidopterous insects, it has a short generation time with a tremendous reproductive ability (van Achterberg & Polaszek 1996; Dweck & Gadallah 2008). In Egypt, it has been recorded as a parasitoid of some insect pests of cereal products (Abdel-Rahman et al. 1977), as well as a parasitoid of the date moth Cadra calidella Guenée, and the locust bean moth Ectomyelois ceratoniae (Zeller), pests of palm trees Phoenix dactilefera in Siwa Oasis (Western Desert, Egypt) (Mesbah et al. 1998). It also attacks the stored product pests Cadra cautella (Walker) and Plodia interpunctella (Hübner) (Khalafallah 2012). In 2017, it was reported as being a parasitoid of the olive leaf moth Palpita unionalis Hübner, a serious pest of olives as well as the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella in Egypt (Mansour & Saber 2017); and as a powerful biocontrol agent assaulting the fourth and fifth instars of the wax moth Gallaria mellonella (Linnaeus) (Awadallah et al. 1985; Adly & Marzouk 2019; Abou El-Ela et al. 2021).
In the present study, H. hebetor is a first record in association with faba beans intercropped with Canola (Brassica napus).
description: Published as part of Gadallah, Neveen S., Edmardash, Yusuf A., Mansour, Amany N. & Imam, Ahmed I., 2023, Parasitoid wasps (Ichneumonoidea) collected from faba bean fields, Kharga Oasis, New Valley, Egypt, with new records and the description of a new species, pp. 501-544 in Zootaxa 5389 (5) on page 516, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5389.5.1, http://zenodo.org/record/10421859