Caliroa nire Hara 2020, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Hara, Hideho
name: Ibuki, Shinichi
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Tenthredinidae
Caliroa
Caliroa nire

description: Caliroa nire Hara sp. nov.
(Figs 1T, 2Q, R, 3M, W, 4T, 5M, P, 10K, L)
Description: female (holotype). Length 5.3 mm. Black, shiny with colorless reflection (Fig. 2Q, R). Labrum black. Mandible black, apically reddish brown. Legs black, fore and middle legs yellow from apices of femora to tarsi, with tibiae brownish dorsally and posteriorly and tarsi apically darkened; hind leg yellow on narrow apex of femur, basal fourth of tibia and basal half of first tarsomere; tibial spurs yellow to brown; claws brown. Wings brown on basal two thirds, colorless transparent on apical third; veins and stigma black.
Postocellar area 1.7 × as wide as length behind lateral ocellus; anterior groove absent. Clypeus with depth of emargination 0.3 × median length of clypeus (Fig. 3M). Malar space about as wide as facet of eye, without setae. First flagellomere 0.8 × as long as second and third flagellomeres combined (Fig. 3W); apical four flagellomeres combined 1.3 × as long as first flagellomere. Forewing with joint of vein Rs and crossvein 2r-rs located at apical 0.35 of anterior margin of cell 1Rs2; basal corner of cell 1M slightly acute (Fig. 2Q). Hind wing with joint of vein 1A and crossvein cu-a located basal to apex of cell 1A (Fig. 4T); crossveins 2r-m and m-cu present.
Punctures mostly minute or inconspicuous. Head and thorax mostly smooth. Mesoscutellum with only inconspicuous minute punctures. Mesoscutellar appendage setose, laterally narrowly glabrous (Fig. 5M). Dorsum of abdomen mostly reticulately microsculptured (Fig. 5P).
Lance (Fig. 10K) with dorsal margin slightly serrate; serrations angulated. Lancet (Fig. 10K, L) with 18 serrulae; ctenidia distinctly darkened, ventrally extending to level of base of serrula; middle serrulae shallower than wide, each with two anterior and three to four posterior teeth; areas between middle serrulae distinctly convex, about as wide as adjacent serrula.
Male. Unknown.
Immature stages. Final feeding instar (semifinal instar) larva (Fig. 1T): 8 mm long; covered with dark brown slime.
Material examined. Holotype (Figs 1T, 2Q, R, 3M, W, 4T, 5M, P, 10K, L): ♀, “[HH110821A] JAPAN: Hok- kaido, Tokachi, Shintoku, Shintoku, coll. solitary larva on Ulmus pumila, 21. VIII. 2011, mat. 23. VIII., em. 20. V. 2012, H. Hara ”.
Etymology. The species epithet is from Nire, the Japanese name for elm, and is a noun in apposition.
Distribution. Japan: Hokkaido.
Bionomics. Host plant: Ulmaceae: Ulmus pumila L. This tree species is an introduced species from northeastern China, and so not the original host.
One larva was collected in late August. The larva and its feeding traces were found on the under surface of a leaf (Fig. 1T). In rearing condition, the larva matured and entered the soil in late August. The female emerged in the following year.
Remarks. In eastern Palearctic and Oriental species, C. nire is similar to two Chinese species, C. angustata Forsius, 1927 and C. semicincta Wei, 2007, and five Japanese species, C. matsumotonis, C. nara, C. ouensis, C. vaccini (part) and C. zelkovae, in having a black body with colorless reflection, a basally pale marked hind tibia, basally dark and apically hyaline or lighter wings, and a female hind wing with the joint of vein 1A and crossvein cu-a located basal to the apex of cell 1A. It will be distinguished from the two Chinese species by apical four flagellomeres combined 1.3 × as long as a first flagellomere [about as long as in the latter two] and abdominal terga microsculptured [not microsculptured in the latter two]. The ovipositors of these three species are very similar, but this species has a lance with serrations slight and angulated (Fig. 10K) [more distinct and rounded in C. angustata (fig. 4A, C in Hara, 2011)], and a lancet with ctenidea narrow and the basal teeth of serrulae large (Fig. 10K, L) [ctenidea wide and the basal teeth of serrulae small in C. semicincta (figs 4, 5 in Wei & Niu, 2007)]. For differences from the five Japanese species, see the key to Japanese species above.
In the key to western Palearctic species by Lacourt (2002), C. nire goes to the couplet 6, but does not precisely fit either line of the couplet.
In the key to Nearctic species by Smith (1971), C. nire goes to the couplet 11 containing C. labrata MacGillivray, 1909 and C. obsoleta (Norton, 1867), but it is distinguished from C. labrata by a hind tarsus basally pale (Fig. 2Q) [not pale in the latter] and wings basally dark and apically hyaline [uniformly, lightly infuscated in the latter], and from C. obsoleta by wings basally dark and apically hyaline [uniformly hyaline in the latter] and apical four flagellomeres together distinctly longer than a first flagellomere [subequal to in the latter]. Their lancets are also different (compare Fig. 10K, L with figs 69 and 74 in Smith, 1971).
description: Published as part of Hara, Hideho & Ibuki, Shinichi, 2020, Caliroa slug sawflies of Japan (Hymenoptera, Tenthredinidae), pp. 301-333 in Zootaxa 4768 (3) on page 330, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4768.3.1, http://zenodo.org/record/3783994