Wroughtonia Cameron 1899
Creators: name: Yan, Cheng-Jin
name: Achterberg, Cornelis Van
name: He, Jun-Hua
name: Chen, Xue-Xin
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Braconidae
Wroughtonia

description: Wroughtonia Cameron, 1899   
(Figs 7–27)  
 Wroughtonia Cameron, 1899: 56. Watanabe, 1972: 3; Gupta et Sharma, 1976: 353; van Achterberg, 1987: 276 –278; Chou et Hsu, 1998: 298 –301; Belokobylskij, 1998: 26 –40, 412–413, 418–419. Type species: Wroughtonia cornuta Cameron, 1899, by monotypy.   
 Duportia Kieffer, 1921: 129–140. Synonymized by Watanabe (1972: 3). Type species: Duportia cincticornis Kieffer, 1921 [= Wroughtonia unicornis (Turner, 1918) syn. nov.], by monotypy.   
 Spasskia Belokobylskij, 1989: 26 –27, 1998: 420; Singh et al., 2005: 95 –96; Yan et al., 2014: 2. Type species: Spasskia sigalphoides Belokobylskij, 1989, by original designation. Syn. nov.   
 Diagnosis. Antenna of ♀ often with white or ivory band, rarely pale part consisting of only one antennal segment or basal half of antenna ivory; occipital carina straight ventrally, remains separated from hypostomal carina above base of mandible, but connected to hypostomal carina below or near level of mandibular base, resulting in a linear occipital flange (Figs 8 H, 10H, 11G) or a distinctly lobe-shaped lamelliform flange below base of mandible (e.g. in type species of Spasskia and Wroughtonia; Figs 18 E, 24H); epistomal suture narrow and rather shallow to wide and moderately deep; pronope deep and usually close to anterior margin of pronotum; frons with median lamella (rarely bifurcate) or with obtuse protuberance between antennal sockets tuberculate dorsally and with distinct ledge halfway; mesopleuron in front of prepectal carina oblique, gradually lowered (Figs 11 B, 12B, 14C, 15B); prepectal carina present medio-ventrally; medio-posterior depression of scutellum wide and usually comparatively short; area in front of tegulum with a more or less developed carina and crenulate; hind femur with a triangular ventral tooth (Figs 7 D, 9D, 11D, 20D, 22E, 24E), with wide (more or less serrate) protuberance (Figs 8 E, 12D, 17D, 18F, 19D, 27D) or only serrate (Figs 10 E, 13E); hind tarsus often whitish or pale yellowish; vein 1-SR of fore wing present; marginal cell of hind wing comparatively wide apically; vein 2A of hind wing present; first metasomal tergite either robust and its apical width 2.6–3.6 times its basal width (Figs 17 C, 18E, 27C; “ Spasskia ”-type) or slenderer and its apical width 2.0–2.6 times its basal width (Figs 7 C, 9C, 16C, 23D, 24D, 26D; formerly part of Helconidea s.l.); basal part of first metasomal sternite about as wide long or distinctly transverse and basally smooth, more or less united with tergite, but separated, basally more or less sculptured and distinctly longer than wide in W. sibirica and related spp. (key couplets 22–26); third and following tergites smooth, but third tergite extensively finely sculptured in W. anastasiae and laterally finely punctate in species included in the former genus Spasskia; fourth and often also fifth–sixth tergites of ♀ well visible behind third tergite (Figs 8 D, 12F, 16C, 25C) or more or less retracted under third tergite (“ Spasskia ”: Figs 13 F, 17C, 18E, 27C; but distinctly exposed in ♂).   
 Notes. The genus Spasskia Belokobylskij cannot retained as valid genus despite weeks of searching for new characters. The character of retracted fourth-sixth tergites is only present in females and is (as could be expected) rather variable. It is also more or less present in the type species of Duportia Kieffer (which has priority) as is the lobe-shaped lamelliform occipital flange protruding up under the base of the mandible. All attempts to use other characters (e.g. shape of the first tergite and its sternite, shape of the hind femur, sculpture and shape of the second metasomal tergite, shape of the occipital flange and of the occipital carina, colour of the female antenna) failed to separate “ Spasskia ” from the rest of the species. Actually the type species of all three genera are closely related and belong to a derived group within Wroughtonia s.l. with first tergite robust and paler than remainder of the metasoma, posterior part of female metasoma more or less retracted, lamelliform occipital flange upcurved, elliptical or lobe-shaped and without robust triangular tooth-shaped ventral protuberance of hind femur. The problems of the generic concept is already clear in Belokobylskij (1998); the inclusion of Spasskia anastasiae Belokobylskij, 1998, makes the genus Spasskia heterogeneous because of the shape of the first and third metasomal tergites, of the hind femur (figs 147–19, 22 in Belokobylskij, 1998) and of the occipital flange are different from those of other species included. To correct this Wroughtonia is used in the wide sense to include the former genus Spasskia and all species not fitting in Helconidea s.s. as defined in this paper.
description: Published as part of Yan, Cheng-Jin, Achterberg, Cornelis Van, He, Jun-Hua & Chen, Xue-Xin, 2017, Review of the tribe Helconini Foerster s. s. from China, with the description of 18 new species, pp. 401-457 in Zootaxa 4291 (3) on page 414, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4291.3.1, http://zenodo.org/record/827526