Ecrizotes hofferi Mitroiu & Andriescu & Manic 2024, comb. nov.
Creators: name: Mitroiu, Mircea-Dan
name: Andriescu, Ionel
name: Manic, Gheorghe
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Pteromalidae
Ecrizotes
Ecrizotes hofferi

description: Ecrizotes hofferi (Bouček, 1964) comb. nov.
Fig. 5
Spathopus hofferi Bouček, 1964: 257–258; holotype ♀, NMPC, not examined.
Diagnosis
Female
All funiculars wider than long; Fu3 not smaller than either Fu2 or Fu4 (Fig. 5E); ventral margin of clypeus strongly convex (Fig. 5D); head in frontal view with gena buccate (Fig. 5C); hind tibia length about 5× width; gaster about equal to combined length of head and mesosoma, moderately compressed laterally (Fig. 5A); tip of hypopygium not incised (cf. Fig. 7I); ovipositor sheath length about 0.4× length of hind tibia.
Male
All tibiae strongly inflated, hind tibia length about 2.9 × width (Fig. 5B). Funicular segments wider than long (Fig. 5F). Fore wing with upper side of basal cell sparsely and more or less uniformly setose. See also Taxonomic comments below.
Material examined
FRANCE • 1 ♀; “ Lac de Tigne / Savoie, France / 9.8.1965. Comellini // Spathopus hofferi Bčk. / det. Z. Bouček, 1976”; NMPC.
SPAIN • 1 ♂; “Spain (Madrid): Cercedilla / 8.vii.74. Z. Bouček // ♂ Spathopus? hofferi Bčk. / det. Z. Bouček, 1975”; NMPC.
Distribution
Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden (UCD Community 2023). France (new record).
Hosts
Unknown. According to Bouček (1964: 258), the species might be a parasitoid of Cecidomyiidae Newman, 1835 (Diptera).
Taxonomic comments
The male specimen from Spain (see above, Fig. 5B, F) identified by Bouček as “? hofferi ” (see Material examined) remains questionable regarding its species-level identification as it generally fits the description of E. hofferi male except for the antenna. In this specimen, the right antenna is broken beyond the pedicel, while the left antenna is broken beyond Fu4. Nevertheless, the first funicular segments are quite different from Bouček’s drawing (Bouček 1964: 256, fig. 4); the antenna drawn by Bouček (apparently belonging to the male allotype collected in Russia) is very curious in having a compact flagellum, with only four large segments before a 3-segmented clava, with an unusually long Fu4; this is rather odd as antennae of males never have fewer funicular segments than the antennae of females. In the redescription of Spathopus, Bouček (1964) states that the antennal formula is 11053 in females and 11143 or 11233 in males, the latter formula probably relying on Ashmead’s assertion that the male antenna is “10-jointed, with one or two ring-joints” (Ashmead 1904). However, in the Spanish male specimen listed above, the flagellum is not compact and the first four funicular segments are more or less equally-sized (Fig. 5F); this is the same as seen in the male specimens of E. brevicauda sp. nov. (Fig. 2F) and E. longicauda sp. nov. (Fig. 7F) described herein, as well as with the male of E. filicornis (Fig. 4F). In all these species, the male antennal formula is 11062, with funiculars never compact and with a 2-segmented clava. The Russian specimen examined by Bouček has inflated tibiae and was rightfully identified as a male, but we consider the possibility that it could have been a gynandromorph male, with abnormal antennae.
description: Published as part of Mitroiu, Mircea-Dan, Andriescu, Ionel & Manic, Gheorghe, 2024, The Afrotropical and West-Palaearctic species of Ecrizotes Förster (Hymenoptera: Pirenidae), pp. 1-37 in European Journal of Taxonomy 970 on page 17, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2024.970.2745, http://zenodo.org/record/14250444