Three new species and two new records of the genus Cotesia Cameron (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) from Iran

Abstract

The present study is based on the genus Cotesia Cameron,1891 collected from Khuzestan Province in the Southwestern part of Iran during 2016–2017. Nine species (+200 specimens) of the genus Cotesia were collected and identified. We recognised three new species, which we describe and illustrate here: Cotesia elongata Zargar & Gupta sp. nov., C. khuzestanesis Zargar & Gupta sp. nov. and C. zagrosensis Zargar & Gupta sp. nov. Two species are recorded for the first time from Iran: Cotesia cynthiae (Nixon, 1974) and C. glabrata (Telenga, 1955). A faunistic list with species distribution in Iran, a modified key to include the new species and brief diagnoses for the new records from Iran are provided.

Taxonomic study of the genus Microplitis Förster, 1862 (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Iran

“…The fauna of some subfamilies of Iranian Braconidae was already catalogued (Rakhshani et al 2007;Farahani et al 2012Farahani et al , 2014aFarahani et al , 2014bFarahani et al , 2014dFarahani et al , 2015Farahani et al , 2016Ameri et al 2014Ameri et al , 2015Ghahari & Beyarslan 2017) but Microgastrinae has been poorly studied (Farahani et al 2014c;Karimi-Malati et al 2014;Gadallah et al 2015;Ghafouri Moghaddam et al 2018;Samin et al 2018;Abdoli et al 2019aAbdoli et al , 2019bZargar et al 2019aZargar et al , 2019bZargar et al , 2019c. Prior to this study, only 17 species of Microplitis had been recorded from Iran (Farahani et al 2014c;Karimi-Malati et al 2014;Gadallah et al 2015;Samin et al 2018Samin et al , 2019Belokobylskij et al 2019;Fernandez-Triana et al 2020).…”

Additions to the fauna of Braconidae (Hym., Ichneumonoidea) of Iran based on the specimens housed in Hayk Mirzayans Insect Museum with six new records for Iran

“…Indeed, the investigations on the fauna of Iranian Braconidae are growing significantly in the recent years. To date, approximately 850 species of Braconidae have been recorded for the fauna of Iran (Ameri et al, 2012(Ameri et al, , 2014a(Ameri et al, , 2014b(Ameri et al, , 2014c(Ameri et al, , 2015(Ameri et al, , 2019Farahani et al, 2012Farahani et al, , 2014aFarahani et al, , 2014bFarahani et al, , 2014cFarahani et al, , 2015Farahani et al, , 2016Zargar et al, 2014Zargar et al, , 2015Zargar et al, , 2019aZargar et al, , 2019bGadallah et al, 2015;Iranmanesh et al, 2017;Rahmani et al, 2017;Dolati et al, 2018;Ghafouri Moghaddam et al, 2018;Abdoli et al, 2019aAbdoli et al, , 2019b. Considering the number of known species from Iran, additional taxonomic and faunistic studies on this family is yet required.…”