Pireninae (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae) of Papua New Guinea: key to genera and description of new taxa
Author
Mitroiu, Mircea-Dan
John T. Huber
text
Mémoires du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
2016
209
307
320
journal article
1243-4442
Genus
GASTRANCISTRUS
Westwood, 1833
Figure 1
Gastrancistrus
Westwood, 1833: 444
.
Type
species.
Gastrancistrus vagans
Westwood, 1833
; by monotypy.
REMARK
– According to
Bouček (1988)
the genus
Gastrancistrus
can be separated from
Premiscogaster
Girault, 1933
by the shape of the antenna:
Premiscogaster
has a conspicuously asymmetric clava and pedunculate flagellomeres, whereas
Gastrancistrus
has a symmetric clava and not or hardly pedunculate flagellomeres. However, according to
Bouček (1988)
and my personal observations,
Premiscogaster
is very close to
Gastrancistrus
, some diagnostic characters overlapping in the two genera. For example,
Bouček (1988: 475)
wrote that “all [
Premiscogaster
] species examined have […] a deep round or oval fovea on the upper part of the scrobes (at least in the females) and at least some coarse punctures on the
sides of the frons. […] The deep fovea on the scrobes is present also in
Gastrancistrus punctatiscutum
, which also has
coarse punctures on the head and is similar in colour to the typical
Premiscogaster
. However, the antennal flagellum in that species is simple and compact, with a normal, symmetric, 3-segmented clava”. Moreover, in many species from the
PNG
material examined, the flagellomeres before the clava are distinctly pedunculate, a deep scrobal fovea is present, but the clava is virtually symmetric (Figure 1). According to
Noyes (2015)
, there are 18 species of
Gastrancistrus
and two species of
Premiscogaster
described from the Australasian region, mostly by Girault. Without a revision of both genera, I therefore hesitate to describe any new species.