First survey of the Neotropical species of Microchelonus Szépligeti with descriptions of twenty-five new species (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Cheloninae)

Minimalist revision and description of 403 new species in 11 subfamilies of Costa Rican braconid parasitoid wasps, including host records for 219 species

“…Of these, only one species convincingly matched one of our barcoded species, and it too was collected in an area heavily sampled by Janzen and Hallwachs and their team. Papp (2016) described 25 new species of the several thousand undescribed species of Chelonus (as Microchelonus) from Costa Rica. From his descriptions, and the lack of color photos, it is very difficult to tell if any match our barcoded specimens.…”

“…Here we follow Kittel et al (2015) and include Microchelonus in Chelonus. Papp (2016) described 25 species of Microchelonus and included a key to the species occurring in central and South America. Of these, all but one occurs in Costa Rica or Honduras, and it is likely that some of the species described below may turn out to be junior synonyms; which we will discover when, and if, the holotypes are barcoded.…”

“…Judging by the similarly sized revision of Leptodrepana by Dadelahi et al (2018), synonyms would be few. The species descriptions in Papp (2016) lack photographic images, and although the line drawings and descriptions are detailed, they do not provide enough diagnostic power for accurate identification. Though the types could be borrowed, this would dramatically retard the rate of description and still result in uncertainty.…”

“…The current treatment deals with eleven subfamilies of Braconidae, i.e., Agathidinae, Braconinae, Cheloninae, Homolobinae, Hormiinae, Ichneutinae, Macrocentrinae, Orgilinae, Proteropinae, Rhysipolinae, and Rogadinae. Although not a thorough review of all species of these subfamilies, we here document a large number of Costa Rican species and provide names and unique identifiers for future keys, biodiversity analyses, conservation (e.g., Janzen 1999a, b;Janzen and Hallwachs 1994, 2016Janzen et al , 2019aJanzen et al , b, 2020a, and phylogenetic studies. This paper makes available morphological, biological, and molecular (the mitochondria gene cytochrome oxidase I, the "DNA barcode") information for 413 species of Costa Rican Braconidae, all but 13 of which are newly described.…”

Parasitic wasps related to Prays oleae (Bernard, 1788) (Lepidoptera, Praydidae) in olive orchards in Greece

“…They oviposit into eggs and larvae of various lepidopterous species, a fact that makes them valuable potential biocontrol agents (Inayatullah and Naeem 2004; Walker and Huddleston 1987; Edmardash et al 2011). The subgenus Microchelonus Szepligeti, 1908 is even considered as a valid genus, following the standpoints of Papp (2014a, b). The genus Chelonus Panzer, 1806 counts 601 species in the Holarctic region (Papp 2014c) with M. elaeaphilus being known in the Mediterranean region, either as M. elaeaphilus or C. elaeaphilus (Papp 2012; Nave et al 2017).…”