Kokkocynips decidua Nieves-Aldrey & Nicholls & Tang & Melika & Stone & Pujade-Villar & Buffington & Maldonado & Medianero 2021, n. comb.
Creators: name: Nieves-Aldrey, José Luis
name: Nicholls, James A.
name: Tang, Chang-Ti
name: Melika, George
name: Stone, Graham N.
name: Pujade-Villar, Juli
name: Buffington, Matthew
name: Maldonado, Yurixi
name: Medianero, Enrique
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Cynipidae
Kokkocynips
Kokkocynips decidua

description: Kokkocynips decidua (Beutenmueller, 1913) n. comb. (Figs. 10A, 11D)
Andricus decidua Beutenmueller, 1913. Insecut. Inscit. Menst., 1: 131-132.
Dryocosmus deciduus (Beutenmueller): Weld, 1926b. Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., 68: 41.
Material examined: holotype. Female. Black Mountains, NC, 1912. Beutenmuller, type, Andricus decidua type Beutm., Beut Coll rec’d 1935, USNM Type No. 52978, Dryocosmus deciduus (Beut), USNMENT00802028, USNM.
Other material examined: USA. Maryland. ‘709Q on Q. rubra. 4 females. USNMENT01735091- USN- MENT01735094 (USNM). Illinois. Evanston. Cut out Nov 16, 1917. LH Weld Coll., 259. Andricus decidua WB Beutt., Beutt coll. Rec’d 1935. 1 female. USNMENT01735090 (USNM). Michigan. Through CV Riley. D. deciduus, det. Weld 1943. 1 female. USNMENT01735095 (USNM).
Gall: galls (Fig. 11D) are multilocular clusters of rounded or elongated swellings on the midribs of the leaves that contain from a few to about 40 oblong larval chambers, depending upon the size of the gall (Beutenmueller, 1913).
Host plant: initially described from red oak (Quercus rubra) and black oak (Q. velutina), but Weld (1959) lists this species from most section Lobatae oaks in eastern North America.
Biology: only known from an asexual generation. The gall is fully-grown by September or October, when it falls to the ground.
Distribution: USA, from New England states southwards at least as far as North Carolina and westwards to the eastern Midwest.
Remarks: this species was transferred to Dryocosmus by Weld (1926b) based on the following morphological account: “mesoscutum smooth, parapsidal grooves complete, head sculptured, no malar groove, antennal segment 3 longer than 4 and claws simple”. These characters match those for Kokkocynips. However, Weld does not mention some other important diagnostic characters that make placement of this species within Dryocosmus problematic, such as the long hypopygial spine without long subapical setae and a sculptured mesopleuron, not smooth as in Dryocosmus (Fig. 10A). According to these morphological features and molecular evidence, this species should be included in Kokkocynips and we herewith formally transfer the species into this genus. The multi-locus phylogeny (Fig. 1) places K. decidua as the sister taxon of the K. imbricariae, K. doctorrosae, K. difficilis complex.
description: Published as part of Nieves-Aldrey, José Luis, Nicholls, James A., Tang, Chang-Ti, Melika, George, Stone, Graham N., Pujade-Villar, Juli, Buffington, Matthew, Maldonado, Yurixi & Medianero, Enrique, 2021, Re-description and systematic re-appraisal of the genus Kokkocynips Pujade-Villar & Melika, (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini), including new combinations of Nearctic species and the description of a new species from Panama, pp. 205-232 in Zootaxa 4938 (2) on pages 214-218, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4938.2.3, http://zenodo.org/record/4563818