New genera of Afrotropical Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera: Cerocephalidae, Epichrysomallidae, Pirenidae and Pteromalidae)

Mircea-Dan Mitroiu; Jean-Yves Rasplus; Simon van Noort

doi:10.7717/peerj.16798

New genera of Afrotropical Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera: Cerocephalidae, Epichrysomallidae, Pirenidae and Pteromalidae)

PeerJ. 2024 Jan 31:12:e16798. doi: 10.7717/peerj.16798. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Mircea-Dan Mitroiu¹, Jean-Yves Rasplus², Simon van Noort^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Biology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Iași, Romania.
² CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Montpellier SupAgro, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
³ Research and Exhibitions Department, South African Museum, Iziko Museums of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa.
⁴ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

Abstract

As a preliminary step towards the development of a key to genera of several families of Afrotropical Chalcidoidea, seven new genera in four families are described: Cerocephalidae-Milokoa Mitroiu, gen. nov. (type species: Milokoa villemantae Mitroiu, sp. nov.); Epichrysomallidae-Delvareus Rasplus, Mitroiu & van Noort, gen. nov. (type species: Delvareus dicranostylae Rasplus, Mitroiu & van Noort, sp. nov.); Pirenidae-Afrothopus Mitroiu, gen. nov. (type species: Afrothopus georgei Mitroiu, sp. nov.); Pteromalidae-Kerangania Mitroiu, gen. nov. (type species: Kerangania nuda Mitroiu, sp. nov.), Pilosalis Mitroiu, Rasplus & van Noort, gen. nov. (type species: Pilosalis barbatulus Mitroiu, sp. nov.), Scrobesia Mitroiu & Rasplus, gen. nov. (type species: Scrobesia acutigaster Mitroiu & Rasplus, sp. nov.), and Spiniclava Mitroiu & Rasplus, gen. nov. (type species: Spiniclava baaiensis Mitroiu & Rasplus, sp. nov.). Additionally, the following new species are described: Pilosalis bouceki Mitroiu & Rasplus, sp. nov., Pilosalis eurys Mitroiu & van Noort, sp. nov., Pilosalis minutus Mitroiu, sp. nov., Pilosalis platyscapus Mitroiu, Rasplus & van Noort, sp. nov., Scrobesia pondo Mitroiu, sp. nov., and Spiniclava setosa Mitroiu, sp. nov. All taxa are illustrated and the relationships with similar taxa are discussed. For each non-monotypic genus a key to species is provided.

Keywords: Africa; Parasitoid; Taxonomy.

MeSH terms

Animal Distribution
Animals
Ctenophora*
Hymenoptera*

Grants and funding

Financial support was provided by the Romanian Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, within Program 1–Development of the national RD system, Subprogram 1.2–Institutional Performance, RDI excellence funding projects, contract no. 11PFE/30.12.2021, and the European Commission through the Synthesys grant BE-TAF-464 and the Synthesys+ grant GB-TAF-TA4-016, to Mircea-Dan Mitroiu. This work is based upon support received from the South African National Research Foundation (grants GUN 61497 and GUN 98115) to Simon van Noort. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.