Synergus punctatus Gillette 1896
Creators: name: Lobato-Vila, Irene
name: Equihua-Martínez, Armando
name: Estrada-Venegas, Edith G.
name: Cibrián-Tovar, David
name: Barrera-Ruíz, Uriel M.
name: Pujade-Villar, Juli
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Cynipidae
Synergus
Synergus punctatus

description: Synergus punctatus Gillette, 1896
Synergus punctata Gillette, 1896. Trans. Am. Entomol. Soc. 23: 90, 94.
Type material: USNM [examined by the first author in Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar (2017)].
Synergus punctatus: McCracken & Egbert (1922). Stanford Univ., Pubs., Univ. Ser. Biol. Sci. 3 (1): 49.
Diagnosis. Synergus punctatus is morphologically close to S. gilletti, whose main differences have already been commented on (see the diagnosis of S. gilletti and the identification key).
Brief redescription. Female antenna 14-segmented, male antenna 15-segmented; F1 just slightly longer than F 2 in females and 1.4 times as long as F 2 in males; F1 of males curved, more expanded apically than basally; malar space 0.6 times as long as height of compound eye; frons and vertex coriaceous, without punctures; frontal carinae narrow and weak, not reaching lateral ocelli; mesoscutum with weak, dense, discontinuous transversal elements; notauli incomplete, faint in the anterior 1/3, wider posteriorly; scutellum wrinkled; scutellar foveae ovate to triangular, shallow, separated by a narrow carina; circumscutellar carina inconspicuous; mesopleurae basally and medially regularly striate, speculum smooth; metasoma not dorsodistally incised, slightly pointed and posteriorly with a wide band of micropunctures occupying almost the distal half of the metasoma; radial cell closed, 2.5 times as long as wide; tarsal claws with a basal tooth; in females, body and head black, except for a yellow and well-defined halo around the mouth, while in males, head yellow except for a black spot in the ocellar area. For more details on the morphology of this species, see Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar (2017).
Distribution. USA. States of Colorado (Gillette 1896) and California (McCracken & Egbert 1922).
Biology. According to Gillette (1896) and McCracken & Egbert (1922), this species is associated with galls of Disholcaspis rubens (Gillette, 1893), Disholcaspis eldoradensis (Beutenmüller, 1909) and Biorhiza eburnea (Bassett, 1890) (= Dryophanta glabra Gillette, 1894) (the latest considered incertae sedis after Pujade-Villar et al. (2018)), always reared from oaks of Quercus section, according to Burks (1979): Q. arizonica Sarg., Q. dumosa Nutt. (= Q. durata), Q. gambelii Nutt., Q. garryana Dougl. ex Hook., Q. lobata Née, Q. oblongifolia Torr., Q. rugosa, Q. toumeyi Sarg., Q. turbinella Greene and Q. undulata Torr.
Remarks. Synergus punctatus was examined and commented in Lobato-Vila & Pujade-Villar (2017).
description: Published as part of Lobato-Vila, Irene, Equihua-Martínez, Armando, Estrada-Venegas, Edith G., Cibrián-Tovar, David, Barrera-Ruíz, Uriel M. & Pujade-Villar, Juli, 2020, Synergus Hartig species group (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Synergini) with partially smooth mesopleurae from the New World, pp. 1-38 in Zootaxa 4822 (1) on page 29, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4822.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/4450519