Apanteles aspersus Liu & Chen 2020, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Liu, Zhen
name: He, Jun-Hua
name: Chen, Xue-Xin
name: Gupta, Ankita
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Braconidae
Apanteles
Apanteles aspersus

description: Apanteles aspersus Liu & Chen, sp. nov.   
(Figures 12, 98)  
 Description. Holotype. Female. Body length 2.2 mm, fore wing length 2.7 mm.   
 Head. Transverse in dorsal view, 2.0× as wide as long, about as wide as mesoscutum. Vertex between eye and posterior ocellus shiny, polished, and impunctate. Temple slightly shiny, uneven, and nearly impunctate, slightly constricted. Face nearly 0.9× as high as wide, slightly shiny, rough with rather small, shallow punctures, with weak aciculation below the sockets, sparsely pubescent, inner margin of parallel-sided. Ocelli small, posterior tangent to anterior ocellus just touching posterior ocelli, distance between fore and hind ocellus slightly longer than diameter of hind ocellus, POL:OD:OOL=5.0:1.5:4.0. Antenna distinctly longer than body length, loosely articulated, penultimate flagellomere 1.6× longer than wide.   
 Mesosoma. Length:width:height = 42.5:25.5:30.0. Disc of mesonotum slightly shiny, with coarse punctures (interspaces not smaller than diameter of puncture) and strong aciculation at posterior part of notaulic courses, hind margin highly shiny and polished. Scutellar sulcus slightly curved, narrow with carinae inside. Scutellum shiny and polished, median length not longer than basal width. Lateral polished field of scutellum reaching over half length of scutellum. Propodeum dull, strongly rugose-punctate anterio-laterally, elsewhere shiny with irregular carinae, areolation well defined, V-shaped apically and open anteriorly, costulae well defined. Mesopleuron shiny, anterior part with coarse, shallow punctures and much strigulate laterally.   
 Legs. Hind femur 3.0× longer than wide. Hind coxa dull, rugose-punctate above (basally). Spines on outer side of third tibia rather sparse. Inner spurs of hind tibia nearly half length of hind basitarsus, outer spur 0.3. Basitarsus of hind leg about as long as tarsomeres 2–4 combined, claws of normal size.   
 Wings. Pterostigma 3.0× as long as its widest part. Vein 1-R1 1.4× longer than pterostigma, 5.8× as long as its distance from apex of marginal cell. Vein r arising from middle of pterostigma, slightly oblique outwards, as long as width of pterostigma, r weakly longer than 2-SR, indistinctly angled at junction, 2-M half length of 2-SR and almost as long as 2-SR+M, the latter slightly longer than 1-SR, cu-a almost as long as 2-SR. First discal cell of fore wing 1.2× wider than high. Second submarginal cell of hind wing one-and-a-third times wider than high. Vein cu-a slightly curved. Hind wing broad, length of 1-M distinctly shorter than distance between its distal extremity and apex of vannal lobe, and vannal lobe beyond its widest nearly straight and without setae.   
 Metasoma. Nearly as long as mesosoma (40.5:42.5). T1 parallel-sided, short, merely 1.1× longer than hind width, concave at basal third, turned-over part slightly transverse, slightly shiny and rugulose, longitudinal trough broad, shallow, apical tubercle small, shiny and polished. T2 slightly shiny, punctulate-reticulate entirely, transverse, 4.0× wider than long in the middle, nearly straight posteriorly. T3 1.5× longer than T2, the punctation surface of anterio-medial part as T2, elsewhere shiny and weakly rough. Tergites posterior to T3 shiny, smooth, pubescent. Hypopygium slightly longer than apex of metasoma. Ovipositor sheath about as long as length of hind tibia, thin. Ovipositor relatively not thin, weakly curved, without apical attenuation.   
 Colour. Black. Tegula dark brown. Palpi honey yellow and spurs pale yellowish. Antenna and ovipositor sheath dark brown. Labrum and mandible black. Legs yellow, except coxae black, extreme apex of hind femur, extreme apex of hind tibia, and hind tarsus (excluding basal half of hind basitarsus) yellowish brown. Wing membrane hyaline to indistinctly brownish, C+SC+R, 1-R1, upper border of pterostigma brown, pterostigma, r, 2-SR and 2-M yellowish brown, the rest more or less pale yellow.   
 Variation. Body length 2.2–2.4 mm, fore wing length 2.3–2.7 mm.   
 Male. Unknown.   
 Material examined. Holotype: 1♀, Lishui, Zhejiang, 1981.IX.25, Zhu Kunyan, No. 814479. Paratypes: 1♀, Dushan, Guizhou, 1980.VI.27, Zhou Shengzhen, No. 860229; 1♀, Antu, Jilin, 1994.VIII.5–6, Lou Juxian, No. 976935; 1♀, Lishui, Zhejiang, 1982.IV–VI, Xu Yue, No. 824122; 1♀, Yiwu, Zhejiang, 1985.VI.7, Chen Xuexin, No. 850687.   
 Distribution. China (Guizhou, Jilin, Zhejiang).   
 Etymology. The specific name “ aspersus ” derives from the Latin, referring to the spines on outer side of third tibia rather sparse.   
 Remarks. This species is similar to A. chloris, but differs in the following: anterio-medial part of T3 punctulatereticulate as T2 (smooth in latter); longitudinal trough broad, shallow (without longitudinal trough in latter); and costulae well defined (not clearly indicated in latter).
description: Published as part of Liu, Zhen, He, Jun-Hua, Chen, Xue-Xin & Gupta, Ankita, 2020, The ater-group of the genus Apanteles Foerster (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from China with the descriptions of forty-eight new species, pp. 1-205 in Zootaxa 4807 (1) on pages 33-36, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4807.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/3927639