Tijdschrift voor Entomologie 157 (2014) 59–77 brill.com/tve Australasian endemic no more: four new species of Miropotes Nixon (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae), with the first record from the Oriental region J. Fernández-Triana, C. van Achterberg & J.B. Whitfield Four new species of Miropotes Nixon (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) are described: Miropotes orientalis Fernández-Triana & van Achterberg, from Thailand and Vietnam, and three species from Australia, M. austini, M. neglectus,andM. lordhowensis (all authored by Fernández-Triana and Whitfield). A key to all known 14 species of the genus is provided, as well as brief, software-generated descriptions (Lucid 3.5.4). Miropotes is distributed mostly within the Australasian region, although it is here reported for the first time for the Oriental region. The relationships with other genera of Microgastrinae are briefly discussed. Keywords: Miropotes, Microgastrinae, Oriental, Australasian. J. Fernández-Triana*, Canadian National Collection of Insects, 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, K1A 0C6, Ontario, Canada. [email protected] C. van Achterberg, Department of Terrestrial Zoology, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Postbus 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. [email protected] J.B. Whitfield, Department of Entomology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. jwhitfi[email protected] Introduction As a result of studies being carried out by the The microgastrine braconid wasp genus Miropotes authors on the world fauna of Microgastrinae a new was described by Nixon (1965) to accommodate an species of Miropotes from the Oriental region has “extremely aberrant” species from Australia. Since been discovered – which is described here, together then, it has been considered as an endemic genus of with three additional new species from Australia, Microgastrinae from the Australasian region (Austin increasing the number of known species in the genus 1990). Miropotes currently comprises ten species dis- to 14. tributed throughout mainland Australia, Tasmania, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, and Papua New Guinea (Austin 1990, Austin & Dangerfield 1992). Methods The genus can be distinguished by the strongly con- This study is based on the examination of material vergent eyes (in females), elongate and delicate body housed in the Canadian National Collection of In- shape, wing venation, shape and sculpture of the me- sects (CNC), Ottawa, Canada; Naturalis Biodiversity dial part of tergites 1 and 2, shape of hypopygium, Center (RMNH), Leiden, the Netherlands; Institute and ovipositor sheaths (Figs 1–24), among other fea- of Ecology & Biological Resources (IEBR), Viet- tures (Austin 1990). namese Academy of Science & Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam; and material collected during the TIGER Tijdschrift voor Entomologie 157: 59–77, Table 1. Figs 1–41. [ISSN 0040-7496]. brill.com/tve © Nederlandse Entomologische Vereniging. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden. Published 20 May 2014. DOI 10.1163/22119434-00002034 * Corresponding author 60 Tijdschrift voor Entomologie, volume 157, 2014 project (Thailand Inventory Group for Entomolog- which we could not study any specimens, the reader ical Research, http://sharkeylab.org/tiger/), on tem- is advised to consult Austin (1990). porary loan to the CNC but to be deposited in the Queen Sirikit Botanic Gardens, Entomology Sec- tion, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Results Morphological terms and measurements of struc- Until now, Miropotes had been only found in Aus- tures are mostly as used by Mason (1981), Hu- tralasia (Mason 1981), and it was considered the only ber & Sharkey (1993), Whitfield (1997), and Karls- true endemic genus of Microgastrinae from that re- son & Ronquist (2012). “Body length” refers to the gion (Austin 1990). Our finding of a new species in anatomical line that extends medially between the the Oriental region (Thailand and Vietnam) changes anteriormost point of the head and the posterior- that situation. For Australasia, two recently described most point of the metasoma (excluding ovipositor genera – Kiwigaster Fernández-Triana, Whitfield & and ovipositor sheaths); and “fore wing length” refers Ward (2011) and Shireplitis Fernández-Triana & to the anatomical line that extends between the prox- Ward (2013), both from New Zealand – remain as imal margin of the first axillary sclerite and the distal- the only true regional endemics at present, although most point of the wing blade. Throughout the keys that situation might change in the future. In fact, the acronyms T1 and T2 are used for morphological several genera of Microgastrinae (e.g. Austrocotesia terms mediotergite 1, and mediotergite 2. Austin and Dangerfield, Buluka de Saeger, Nyere- Geographical distribution is also provided in the ria Mason, Parapanteles Ashmead, Paroplitis Mason, key between brackets, and is intended as supplemen- Philoplitis Mason, and Wilkinsonellus Mason) were tary information that can help with identification. considered at some point to be endemics from a par- The new species descriptions are based on the holo- ticular biogeographical region, but further collecting type female, with other specimens studied (when and study changed that situation by expanding their available) for intraspecific variation. known distribution. The topic of regional richness Lucid 3.5.4 (http://www.lucidcentral.com/) soft- of Microgastrinae genera will be explored in a future ware was used to generate automatic descriptions paper. of the Miropotes species and to prepare Lucid iden- It is likely that more species of Miropotes will be tification keys. A dataset of 14 characters and 77 found when more collections of the Oriental region character-states was used to provide uniform descrip- are studied. However, based in the known distri- tions for all species treated. Description format in- bution of the described species, the center of spe- cludes one sentence per character, with the charac- ciation of the genus seems to be Australia, reach- ter mentioned first and the character-state follow- ing the Oriental region just marginally (Table 1). ing after a colon, e.g., “Body length: 2.1–2.2 mm”. Most of the specimens have been collected in rain- Whenever a species was scored for more than one forests, but others have been collected in dry rainfor- character-state, the description included all of the est/woodlands, or in cool temperate rainforests (for pertaining character-states separated by “or”. When- detailed distribution of species within Australasia see ever a character-state was coded as uncertain due to Austin 1990). poor condition of the specimen(s), the description includes the details of the character-state as best as- sessed, followed by a question mark “(?)”. Table 1. Diversity of Miropotes by biogeographical re- Photos were taken with a Keyence VHX-1000 gions, countries and areas of Australia. Digital Microscope, using a lens with a range of 13– × Region Number of 130 . Multiple images through the focal plane were known species taken of a structure and these were combined, using of Miropotes the software associated with the Keyence System to Oriental (Vietnam and Thailand) 1 produce a single, focused image. Australasia (Australia, New Caledonia, 13 For Miropotes species previously described we only Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu) provide brief descriptions (as generated by Lucid), Australasia, but not in Australia 1 and comments when related to the new species be- (only known from New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, and/or Vanuatu) ing described in this paper. Five previously described Papua New Guinea 3 species were represented in the CNC by at least Australia (including Tasmania and 12 one specimen (in most cases paratypes from Austin’s Lord Howe Island) work); and in those cases we provide color photos to Widespread in Australia 4 Australia southeast (including Tasmania and 4 complement Austin’s (1990) drawings and SEM fig- Lord Howe Island) ures. However, for comprehensive descriptions and Australia northeast (Queensland) 3 illustrations of those species, especially the five for Fernández-Triana et al.: Four new Miropotes, with the first from the Oriental region 61 Based on the available specimens in collections, gastrinae. Datasets were analyzed independently and some species would seem to have a disjunct distribu- combined. The results recovered Miropotes as the tion (e.g., M. lordhowensis, M. neglectus and M. ori- sister group of all other genera of Microgastrinae entalis). We believe that is likely to be a sampling in both the morphological analysis only (bootstrap artifact, and more collecting will be necessary before value: 100, Bremer support 10), and in the combined concluding on this topic. analysis of the three gene markers plus morphol- It is also still not clear what role the unusual ogy (bootstrap value: 99). The analysis of only the ovipositor plays in parasitism of their (likely con- 28S dataset recovered Miropotes as the sister group cealed) hosts. The only known host record (from of all Microgastrinae (bootstrap value: 100, Bremer M. chookolis Austin) is from the pyraustine cram- support 1) minus the Microplitini clade – which bid Samea multiplicalis Guenee, introduced in 1981 includes the genera Alloplitis, Microplitis, Philoplitis from South America into Australia for control of and Snellenius. However, the molecular analysis of the water weed Salvinia molesta Mitchell (Semple & the 16S or COI datasets independently, and the anal- Forno 1987). Since the moths were introduced with ysis of the three genes combined did not provide any careful screening,