A new genus and three new species of fossil braconid wasps (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonoidea) from Eocene Baltic and Rovno ambers

Abstract

New parasitoid wasps of the family Braconidae are documented from Eocene Baltic and Rovno ambers. A new fossil genus belonging to the braconid subfamily Exothecinae, Palaeocolastes n. gen., with its type species P. bruesi n. sp., is described and illustrated from Baltic amber. This represents the first reliable fossil record for a member of Exothecinae. Two additional new species from Baltic amber are also described: Ascogaster (Syntaphus) latitibialis n. sp. (Cheloninae) and Meteorus arasnitsyni n. sp. (Euphorinae). Another fossil species, Microtypus eocenus n. sp. (Microtypinae), is described from coeval Rovno amber (Ukraine), representing the first braconid species described from this deposit. A new record of a female of Diospilites brevicornis Brues, 1933 (Diospilitinae) from Baltic amber, together with variation of some diagnostic features of the species and redescription of its subfamily and genus, are also provided. UUID: http://zoobank.org/656cb1a3-b9cf-4696-ae24-0d4df9545101.

First record of the parasitoid subfamily Doryctinae (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) in Rovno amber: description of a new genus and species with stigma-like enlargement on the hind wing of the male

“…Only two recently published records exist for Rovno amber braconids: description of a new species of Microtypus Ratzeburg, 1848 (Belokobylskij et al 2021), and report about the presence of the aphidiine genus Toxares Haliday, 1840 (Kalyuzhna and Perkovsky 2021).…”

Two new genera of Encyrtidae (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) with reduced ovipositor sheaths

“…This brings the number of Rovno amber hymenopteran genera unknown in Baltic amber to 28 of 90, i.e., 31% (our unpublished data). This includes 22 of 52 (42.3%) non-ant hymenopterans genera and 46 of 69 of non-ant species (66.7%) (Perkovsky 2018;Manukyan 2019;Martynova et al 2019;Simutnik et al , 2021bBelokobylskij et al 2021;Colombo et al 2021a, b, c;Manukyan and Zhindarev 2021). Baltic amber species from large arthropod orders and suborders reported from Rovno amber vary from 32.4% for Trichoptera (Perkovsky 2017;Melnitsky et al 2021aMelnitsky et al , 2021bMelnitsky et al , 2021c, 24% for Nematocera (Giłka et al 2021) and 15% for Coleoptera (Telnov et al 2021;Kirichenko-Babko et al 2022;Perkovsky et al 2022); 33% of non-ant hymenopterans common for Baltic and Rovno amber is close to the ratio for caddisflies (Trichoptera), which have been extensively studied (e.g., Melnitsky et al 2021c and references therein).…”